Stablecoin giant Tether owns $132 billion in U.S. debt

Tether, the company behind the popular stablecoin USDT, makes billions from its huge financial reserves. In the past quarter, the crypto company posted another substantial profit and almost doubled its financial buffer.

The amount of US government bonds that Tether now owns is particularly striking. This allows the company to compete with countries such as South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.

The latest quarterly figures show that Tether achieved an operating net profit of $1.5 billion in the third quarter of 2026. For the first nine months of the year, the profit amounted to 4.5 billion dollars.

The company mainly makes money by investing the reserves behind USDT in US government bonds and other short-term investments. These yield interest.

At the end of September, Tether had $191.5 billion in assets versus $183.5 billion in liabilities. As a result, the additional financial buffer grew from 4.1 billion dollars at the end of June to 7.95 billion dollars.

Investments in US government bonds are particularly impressive. Tether now owns $132.4 billion of that, directly and indirectly.

That's even more than the United Arab Emirates, which has about $116.1 billion in U.S. government bonds, according to U.S. government figures. South Korea is still just above Tether with 134.2 billion dollars.

The company's Bitcoin (BTC) reserves have also risen in value. At the end of September, they were worth about 8.37 billion dollars, compared to 5.8 billion dollars three months earlier.

Meanwhile, Tether remains a dominant player in the crypto market. USDT is the largest stablecoin in the world and represents about sixty percent of the total stablecoin market.

A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency whose value is linked to, for example, the US dollar. This allows investors to move money within the crypto market without being directly exposed to the large price fluctuations of other crypto currencies.

According to figures from DefiLlama, the total stablecoin market is now worth about $297.3 billion.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino states that USDT has more than 700 million users worldwide. The digital dollar would be particularly popular in emerging economies.

Nevertheless, questions remain about Tether's financial transparency. The latest reserve figures have been audited by accountancy firm BDO, but that is not the same as a full audit of the financial statements.

In August, Tether announced that KPMG had completed a full audit of the 2025 financial statements. However, those audited financial statements have not been made public.

As a result, outsiders can view Tether's quarterly results, but there is still a lack of a public, fully controlled overview of all business activities.