From Paolo

Transparency is king.

Tether today has 2.5B+ USD (equivalent) in company own excess reserves.

What company own excess reserves mean?

It means that Tether, on top of the 100% reserves necessary to back issued tokens, has currently 2.5B+ USD (equivalent) more. This accounts to ~3% additional value on top of the minimum 100% reserves.

These excess reserves have been accrued through interest rates on our massive US t-bill portfolio and other investments (gold, ...).

Why does Tether keep excess reserves in the portfolio?

While these excess reserves are part of Tether own shareholder equity, Tether prefers to give priority to ensuring that its stablecoin products as resilient as possible. While banks can do fractional reserve, we believe that's not a viable strategy for a stablecoin, so it's crucial that Tether keeps an additional cushion to further protect its user base.

From the latest attestation (dated 2023-03-31), Tether has confirmed that it held already ~2% of its portfolio in #bitcoin  .

Today @Tether_to announces its commitment to use up to 15% of its newly monthly net operating profits (ie. accounting the realized dollarized profits coming from t-bill and similar investments) to purchase #bitcoin  as part of its excess reserves.

The total value of Bitcoin kept in the portfolio is currently well below our own excess reserves (~1.5B vs 2.5B), and our aim is to continue in the same direction, since only up to 15% of net operating profits will be used for these continuous Bitcoin purchases.

Why #bitcoin  and not something else?

Because Bitcoin is the epitome of a sound and secure monetary system with its decentralized nature and scarcity, Bitcoin is revolutionizing the concept of money and challenging traditional finance.

Bitcoin has defied expectations, shattered boundaries, and provides access to the global financial system to anyone with an internet connection.