Get caught up in the conspiracy theory of BTC stealth traders? Revealing the panoramic view of Tether’s Bitcoin strategy

Author: Nancy, PANews

In the center of the stage at the 2025 Bitcoin Conference, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said in front of a picture of Goku, "Bitcoin is my Goku, our friend."

This seemingly emotional expression is actually a microcosm of Tether's strategy core. As the issuer of the world's largest stablecoin USDT, Tether is embedding itself into multiple levels of the Bitcoin ecosystem with a builder attitude. From reserve asset allocation to mining business, from ecological investment to infrastructure construction, Tether is deeply involved in the neural center of the new global financial order.

Because of Tether's deep penetration in the Bitcoin system, its actions have also triggered more and more conspiracy theories and have caused heated discussions overseas, questioning that it artificially pushes up the price of Bitcoin by continuously issuing USDT to build a "closed-loop bubble" that circulates with each other by continuously issuing USDT.

Establishing Bitcoin reserve strategy, accused of being the only big

buyer

Starting in May 2023, Tether announced that it will regularly allocate up to 15% of its realized net operating profits to purchase Bitcoin. Tether expects current and future Bitcoin holdings in its reserves will not exceed shareholder capital buffers and will further strengthen and diversify reserves. As of the first quarter of 2025, Tether held Bitcoin worth approximately US$7.66 billion, a significant increase from the previous quarter.

The "Gold + Bitcoin" dual-wheel reserve mechanism is Tether's hedging combination against sovereign fiat currency risks and brings substantial financial returns. Ardoino recently disclosed that Tether currently holds more than 100,000 Bitcoins and more than 50 tons of gold. In 2024 alone, Tether's net profit reached US$13.7 billion, of which investments in gold and Bitcoin contributed approximately US$5 billion in profits. Ardoino once said that they hold gold not to challenge Bitcoin, but to challenge the centralized fiat currency system.

However, Jacob King, founder of WhaleWire, pointed out that "relying on continuous printing of money and taking over, Tether is the only big buyer in the entire Bitcoin market. It proves its legitimacy by pulling up the price of Bitcoin after the new USDT printing, and buying USD and gold as reserves." He called this model the "ultimate house of cards" and the entire system may be imbalanced once stablecoins face regulation or Bitcoin demand dry up.

Tether's ambition for Bitcoin is far more than just hoarding coins on its own. In April this year, Tether, together with SoftBank and Cantor, jointly launched the crypto investment joint venture Twenty One Capital, with the goal of building a global Bitcoin asset acquisition and management platform with a total scale of US$3 billion. This platform is regarded by the industry as Tether's structural layout against MicroStrategy. In this joint venture transaction, Tether holds 42.8% of the joint venture's equity and 51.7% of the voting rights, and actually has the dominance. Cantor holds a 5% stake in Tether, and its CEO Brandon Lutnick is the son of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.

"Jack Mallers (CEO of Twenty One Capital) is closely related to Tether and Bitfinex's systems. His other company, Strike, has long been closely related to Tether. They claim to have a large market demand, but most of the Bitcoins they reserve directly come from Tether. This is an 'empty shell operation' in a larger liquidity trick." Jacob King bluntly stated on social media that if stablecoins are regulated by the United States in the future, Tether will find it difficult to continue to inject water, and the continued huge net outflow of Bitcoin spot ETFs in recent months, indicating that institutions are retreating quickly.

On-chain data shows that Twenty One Capital’s Bitcoin reserves come from Tether, which recently injected more than 37,000 BTC through five transfers, worth nearly US$4 billion.

Rumble, a video platform that Tether invested more than $770 million, has also established its own Bitcoin vault, saying that Bitcoin has the potential to be an inflation hedge tool.

Self-built mines and strategic investments are carried out

simultaneously, and plans to become one of the world's largest miners

Tether's ambitions go far beyond asset reserves. As early as 2023, Tether launched a renewable energy-powered Bitcoin mining project in Uruguay, leveraging local rich clean energy resources (such as hydropower and wind) to create an efficient and sustainable mining base. Immediately afterwards, it participated in El Salvador's volcanic energy program and became the capital force that promoted one of the world's largest geothermal Bitcoin mines. After that, Tether continued to expand the energy map of Latin America, and has invested a total of US$500 million in Uruguay, Paraguay and El Salvador to build a vertically integrated mining base.

"Selvador's so-called Bitcoin investment is actually a carefully created illusion. The Bitcoin in its treasury was transferred directly from Bitfinex and Tether. Tether even personally drafted all Bitcoin bills in El Salvador. But many people did not notice that El Salvador had quietly abandoned the implementation of the Bitcoin fiat currency. Tether and its internal network could not support all this because there was no real market demand at all." Some of Jacob King's statements are not clear yet, but in February this year, El Salvador did officially abolish the status of Bitcoin as a fiat currency through the Bitcoin bill, and merchants and institutions are no longer forced to accept Bitcoin and cannot be used to pay taxes. Polls show that the vast majority of people have not benefited and the economic situation has not improved.

In addition to building its own mining farms, Tether is also actively expanding its global mining territory through investment and mergers and acquisitions. So far, it has invested in companies such as Bitdeer, Northern Data Group, Blockstream and Swan Mining, covering chip procurement, server manufacturing, data center construction and even enterprise-level computing power custody, becoming an important leader in supporting Tether's Bitcoin mining layout.

This year, Tether took the lead and announced that it would deploy computing power to the OCEAN mining pool to promote the construction of decentralized Bitcoin mining infrastructure. Meanwhile, Tether recently announced plans to open source its Bitcoin mining software, a move that will allow new miners to enter the market without relying on expensive third-party suppliers.

According to Ardoino's disclosure at the Bitcoin 2025 conference, Tether has invested more than $2 billion in the energy and infrastructure sectors, and has actually invested more in Bitcoin mining. It is expected that Tether will become the world's largest Bitcoin miner by the end of this year, and this forecast covers all listed companies.

Full-stack layout from Bitcoin chain issuance to cultural penetration

Tether is promoting its full-stack strategic layout and continuously expanding the boundaries and influence of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

For example, at the technical level, in addition to chains such as Ethereum and TRON, Tether issues USDT to the Bitcoin protocol through Omni, Liquid, Lightning, RGB, etc., and the popular Bitcoin sidechain network Plasma, it is expected to natively support USDT; in terms of wallet tools, Tether AI has launched a self-custodial wallet WDK, which natively supports Bitcoin and USDT, allowing enterprises, applications, websites and even AI Agents to access, thereby further lowering the threshold for Bitcoin financial infrastructure; in terms of payment ecosystem, Tether donated the open source project BTC Pay Server to support the continuous development and optimization of its open source crypto payment processor.

At the cultural and educational level, Tether co-organized the Plan B Summit with Lugano, Switzerland, and sponsored local football clubs to introduce Bitcoin’s brand image into European stadium culture. At the same time, with the help of the Tether education program, it has established cooperative relationships with many universities around the world to promote the popularization of Bitcoin knowledge and cultivate the next generation of crypto-natives. In the future, Twenty One Capital will also focus on popularizing Bitcoin-related knowledge, conducting educational content and video media, and developing a series of Bitcoin-related financial and consulting services.

"For me, the most important thing is that I can contribute to building a more accessible, tougher, and more useful Bitcoin ecosystem. If I can play a role in the dimensions of infrastructure, technology, and education, that's enough. The Bitcoin story has never been about a person, but the global community's persistence in an idea - even at a low point, even if it's not understood, to build the future firmly. If I can play a role in helping more people join the ecosystem and give them sovereignty and security tools, it will be a mission worth remembering." Ardoino said in an interview with Bitcoin News not long ago.