Tether, the crypto company behind the largest stablecoin USDT, said on Friday it generated $13 billion group-wide net profits last year in a record-breaking year.
Some $7 billion of the profits derived from the firm’s vast U.S. Treasuries and repo holdings, and $5 billion from unrealized appreciation of the company’s gold and bitcoin (BTC) holdings. Other investments contributed $1 billion.
According to the company’s latest quarterly attestation signed by accounting firm BDO Italy, the group’s stablecoin issuer arms Tether International Limited and Tether Limited disclosed $143.7 billion of assets in reserve against $136.6 billion in liabilities, adding up to $7 billion of excess reserves backing its stablecoins. Treasury bills in the reserve rose to $94.5 billion.
The group also increased its bitcoin holdings last quarter for the first time since March, holding nearly 84,000 BTC worth about $7.8 billions as of year-end, according to the attestation.
Read more: Tether Brings Its $140B USDT Stablecoin to Bitcoin and Lightning Networks
Tether’s USDT is the fourth-largest cryptocurrency with its $140 billion market capitalization, and a key piece of infrastructure for digital asset trading and increasingly popular in developing regions for payments, remittances and savings in U.S. dollars. However, several exchanges have delisted or announced to suspend USDT for EU users recently due to MiCA regulations, spurring a decrease in the token’s supply.
The firm this year announced plans to move its headquarters to El Salvador, the bitcoin-friendly nation state in Central America that has become an emerging hub for crypto firms under President Nayib Bukele’s leadership.