Paolo Ardoino has broken his silence to respond to rumors. Did Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, take advantage of Bitcoin’s rise to sell $4 billion worth of the cryptocurrency? That’s what one YouTuber believes he has discovered after analyzing the company’s public statements for the first and second quarters of 2025. What’s the truth?
Where did Tether’s 37,000 Bitcoins go?
In a YouTube video, Clive Thompson analyzes public data published by Tether for the first and second quarters of 2025. Seeing a drop in Bitcoin reserves—from 92,650 BTC in Q1 to 83,274 BTC in Q2—the Warren Buffett-esque YouTuber thinks he has uncovered the truth.
Did Tether take advantage of the rise in Bitcoin’s price to offload its massive stockpile of 100,521 BTC?
This was a godsend for the amateur videographer, who has over 42,000 followers and often uses sensationalism to attract views.
The video, which has since been deleted, caused enough of a stir that Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, broke his usual silence. On X, the Italian confirmed the analysis of Samson Mow, CEO of Jan3.
Samson Mow noted that this decline occurred when Tether moved some of its Bitcoins to XXI, a Bitcoin Treasury Company that describes itself as “a corporate treasury system designed to align business interests with absolute scarcity [Bitcoin, editor’s note]. XXI is a Bitcoin Treasury Company founded by Tether and SoftBank with financial support from Cantor Fitzgerald. Interestingly, Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick is also the new U.S. Treasury Secretary, appointed by Donald Trump.
Another interesting fact is that Cantor Fitzgerald is one of 24 companies with “the right to buy and sell U.S. government bonds directly from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”
Cantor Fitzgerald is also a shareholder in Tether, with a $600 million transaction for 5% of the company taking place a few months ago.
Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald is the bank where Tether stores its “some $133 billion in bonds and other reserves.”
In other words, this umpteenth entity, XXI, the third-largest Bitcoin Treasury in the world after Strategy and MARA Holding, is almost part of the family.
“Tether invests in Bitcoin, gold, and land”
These Bitcoins that have disappeared from Tether’s balance sheet are therefore far from lost or spent.
In fact, you would have to be completely unfamiliar with Tether and Paolo Ardoino to believe that the latter would sell Bitcoins. The entrepreneur has created a formidable machine that prints money and uses it to buy Bitcoins, not the other way around.
Admittedly, Paolo Ardoino also buys gold, which supports his new gold-backed stablecoin, the XAUt. Finally, the billionaire’s latest investment through his company is quite simply land:
Tether has not sold any Bitcoin. As Samson says below, it has contributed part of its reserve to XXI. As the world continues to darken, Tether will continue to invest part of its profits in safe assets such as Bitcoin, gold, and real estate. Tether is the stable company.
Paolo Ardoino
Paolo Ardoino took these rumors with humor. In the future, he imagines the “FUDsters” damaging his image by accusing him of “putting cream in his carbonara.”
In the future FUDsters will say that “Paolo puts cream in the carbonara pasta.” https://t.co/5P5DHZdH9c
— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) September 7, 2025
Although this is factually better, we can understand that the Italian is not ready to sell Bitcoin, not even to buy gold, since Tether plans to accumulate both.
