Tether Further Slashes Commercial Paper Holdings, Increases US Treasury Portfolio

Major stablecoin issuer Tether has further reduced its commercial paper holdings to less than $50 million, with more than half of its backing in US Treasury Bills.

The continuous reduction in Tether’s commercial debt holdings is in line with the firm’s plans revealed earlier in the year.

• In an update posted on Twitter on Monday (October 3, 2022), Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino announced that the company’s total US Treasury portfolio is currently at 58.1% as of September 2022. This signals an increase from 43.5% on June 30.
• Ardoino also mentioned that the firm also slashed its commercial debt holdings to less than $50 million.
• The latest development comes shortly after a US District Court in New York in September ordered Tether to provide financial records to access USDT backing. The court order is in response to a lawsuit filed in 2019, which claimed that Tether and crypto exchange Bitfinex manipulated the market to issue USDT to inflate the price of Bitcoin.
• Tether responded, saying the court order was “a routine discovery order” and does not “in any way substantiate plaintiffs’ meritless claims.” The stablecoin issuer added that the company already planned to produce the documents concerning its USDT reserves.
• In August, Tether said it would provide attestation reports every month, a change from the former quarterly attestations, and hired the accounting firm BDO Italia.