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Tether Reportedly Bought 8.9K Bitcoin for $380M, Remaining 11th-Largest BTC Holder

The stablecoin issuer announced in May 2023 that it would start buying bitcoin in an effort to diversify the backing of its USDT stablecoin.

Updated Mar 8, 2024, 8:10 p.m. Published Jan 18, 2024, 3:46 p.m.
Stablecoin issuer Tether reportedly purchased another 8,888 bitcoin for $380 million. (Nikhilesh De/CoinDesk)
Stablecoin issuer Tether reportedly purchased another 8,888 bitcoin for $380 million. (Nikhilesh De/CoinDesk)

Tether added to its bitcoin [BTC] holdings at the end of the fourth quarter, buying 8,888 more BTC for $380 million, The Block reported.

An address associated with the company shows bitcoin holdings of 66,465, which makes it the 11th-largest holder of the cryptocurrency, according to a ranking by Dune Analytics.

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In an effort to shift away from cash and cash-like assets such as U.S. Treasury bonds backing its USDT stablecoin, Tether announced in May 2023 that it would start allocating as much as 15% of its profits into bitcoin. USDT is the world's largest stablecoin with a market capitalization of over $95 billion.

In its latest attestation report, Tether held $72.6 billion in government bonds and $1.7 billion in bitcoin, among other allocations.

The company has long been under the microscope for the quality of its assets, but Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, whose firm acts as a custodian for Tether, this week reassured skeptics that its holdings are legit.

The Switzerland-based company first purchased bitcoin in September 2022.

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KuCoin Hits Record Market Share as 2025 Volumes Outpace Crypto Market

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KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.

Lo que debes saber:

  • KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
  • This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
  • Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
  • Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
  • Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.

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Bitcoin hash rate slides during U.S. winter storm while markets shrug off mining disruption

(Zac Durant/Unsplash)

The temporary loss of mining power underscores academic concerns that geographic and pool concentration can magnify infrastructure failures, though markets showed little immediate reaction.

Lo que debes saber:

  • Bitcoin’s hashrate fell about 10 percent during a U.S. winter storm, underscoring how local power disruptions can strain the network’s capacity to process transactions.
  • Researchers have shown that concentrated mining, as seen in a 2021 regional outage in China, can lead to slower block times, higher fees and broader market disruptions.
  • With a few large pools now controlling most of Bitcoin’s hashrate, the network is increasingly vulnerable to localized infrastructure failures, even as the price of BTC remains largely unaffected in the short term.