Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, told a packed audience at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas Thursday that the company now holds more than 100,000 BTC and over 50 tons of gold, confirming its spot as one of the largest holders of both assets in the crypto industry.
Per Cryptopolitan’s calculations, the bitcoin stash is worth over $10 billion at current prices, and the gold bars make up another huge slice of reserves.
On the same presentation slide, Paolo showed that Tether earned a $13 billion profit in 2024, making it the most profitable name in crypto by a long shot.
Paolo explains Tether’s gold decision at the Bitcoin event
The crowd at Bitcoin 2025 wasn’t full of gold lovers, but Paolo didn’t dodge that. He responded directly to the tension.
“Many bitcoiners don’t like talking about gold as if gold would take away something from Bitcoin. There is no way. Bitcoin is perfect. Gold is imperfect,” Paolo said . He added, “Gold is not competing with bitcoin; gold is competing with fiat and that’s why we like a little bit of gold.”
“We invested 2 billion in energy production and bitcoin mining actually is a bit more than that. Something that we have been very shy to say, but I think that it’s very realistic that by the end of the year, Tether will be the biggest Bitcoin miner in the world, even including all the public companies.”
Tether’s most recent financial disclosure for Q1 2025 laid out its current reserves. The report confirmed that Tether is holding over $7 billion in bitcoin and more than $6 billion in standard physical gold bars.
That bitcoin valuation was based on a BTC price of around $83,000 at the time of the report. And that’s not the only tie-in. Earlier Thursday, Tether backer Cantor Fitzgerald Asset Management announced a new product: a fund that will offer direct exposure to bitcoin with “1-to-1 downside protection based on the price of gold.”
While all that was happening, Tether-backed company Twenty One Capital was updating its financial filing. The company raised another $100 million by selling convertible notes, bringing its total raise to $685 million.
Twenty One is led by Jack Mallers, founder of Strike, and is forming through a SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners, which is already listed on Nasdaq.
Before this new round, Twenty One had already locked down $585 million, with $385 million from earlier convertible notes and $200 million through a PIPE deal.
This latest funding will go straight into buying more bitcoin. The company already spent $458 million on BTC earlier this month, and another $3.6 billion came in as part of the merger.
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