Tether Boosts Its Reserves With 8,888 Bitcoin Acquisition As BTC Seals Highest Monthly Close Ever
Tether added to its Bitcoin (BTC) holdings in the first quarter of 2024, purchasing 8,888 more BTC for $626 million. A wallet address associated with the company shows Bitcoin holdings of 75,354 — which makes it the seventh-largest holder of the benchmark cryptocurrency.
Tether’s purchase came as Bitcoin’s March monthly close became its best in history.
Tether Now The 7th-Largest BTC Holder
Stablecoin giant Tether continues to load up on Bitcoin, bringing its total holdings of the crypto asset to around $5.2 billion.
Blockchain data shows a BTC address associated with Tether received 8,888 BTC — $626 million — throughout Q1 2024, ending with a big purchase on March 31. The purchase brought Tether’s holdings to a total of 75,354 BTC, with profits of roughly $3 billion. That means it is one of the largest private companies holding Bitcoin.
Tether snapped up BTC constantly throughout 2023. Last May, the company announced it would start allocating 15% of its realized profits to Bitcoin in a bid to move away from cash and cash-like assets like U.S. Treasury bonds backing its USDT stablecoin. According to a ranking by Bitinforcharts, Tether has now become the seventh-largest holder of BTC following its latest Q1 acquisition, from its previous rank of 11 in January this year.
Tether mints USDT — the world’s largest stablecoin with a market capitalization of over $104.5 billion, according to CoinGecko. USDT crossed the $100 billion market cap mark on March 4, recording a nearly 10% year-to-date growth.
Bitcoin Notches Historic Monthly Close
Bitcoin has smashed through all previous highs in 2024, and in March hit a fresh lifetime high of $73,737 — roughly 7% beyond its old all-time high from 2021.
On March 31, the price of Bitcoin managed to record a monthly close at $71,250 on crypto exchange Bitstamp. This is historic since the premier crypto saw a close above the previous peak of the cycle for the very first time.
The influx of institutional capital from spot Bitcoin ETFs and the resulting strain on its fixed 21 million supply undoubtedly helped BTC set a new peak before a block subsidy halving event for the first time. Historically, Bitcoin has started its parabolic bull run after halving.
Bitcoin is trading for hands at $68,796 at publication time, according to CoinGecko data, erasing some earlier gains.
Filed under: Bitcoin - @ April 1, 2024 5:27 pm