BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes noted that Tether is quietly changing its strategy amid expectations of a new wave of rate cuts from the Fed.
According to him, this is clearly visible from the company’s latest report: the volume of investments in government bonds is decreasing, while the share of Bitcoin and gold, on the contrary, is growing.
Hayes believes this is not a random rebalancing. Rather, it signals that Tether is feeling increasingly confident in alternative assets, which usually rise in price when interest rates start to fall.
Could Tether’s shift to Bitcoin and gold bring risks?
In a post on X, Arthur Hayes warned: Tether’s new strategy is not so harmless. If Bitcoin or gold suddenly drop in price, it could hit the company’s own capital “cushion”.
Then old questions about the solvency of USDT could resurface. In Hayes’ opinion, the current change in reserve structure is an obvious attempt to adapt to the new macroeconomic reality.
According to the latest report, Tether’s total assets amount to about $181 billion. The main part is still held in cash, US government bonds, repos, and money market instruments.
In addition, the report lists almost $13 billion in precious metals and about $10 billion in Bitcoin. The volume of secured loans exceeds $14 billion, with the rest distributed among other assets.
Tether assets. Source: X
S&P gave Tether a low stability rating
The agency S&P Global Ratings gave Tether a “weak” stability rating after analyzing the structure of its reserves.
According to analysts, the company is increasingly investing in volatile assets, which makes USDT vulnerable if market turbulence begins.
Former Citi analyst: Tether’s profit offsets reserve risks
A former Citi analyst named Joseph believes that Tether’s public reporting covers only those assets that directly back USDT.
At the same time, according to him, the company has a separate corporate balance sheet, with stakes in businesses, mining projects, internal reserves, and Bitcoin, which is not reflected in public reports at all.
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He is confident that these additional assets change the overall risk picture. In addition, Joseph calls Tether an extremely profitable structure.
According to his estimates, the company owns about $120 billion in US government bonds with yield. Since 2023, these securities have brought Tether about $10 billion in profit per year, while operating expenses remain minimal.
Tether is confident the company is stable and profitable
According to Joseph, the high efficiency of the business directly affects the capitalization of Tether. He criticized earlier estimates that mentioned an amount of $20 billion with a yield of 3%. Such calculations, in his opinion, are greatly exaggerated and do not reflect the real picture.
He also emphasized that the structure of Tether is fundamentally different from a bank. While banks keep from 5 to 15% of deposits in liquid form and rely on the central bank as insurance, Tether has no such support. Instead, the company offsets risks through the high yield of its assets.
Paolo Ardoino, former CEO of Tether, did not leave this unanswered. He stated that he is not particularly worried about the S&P rating. According to him, traditional agencies have never been accurate, repeatedly missing real threats until they exploded across the market.
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Ardoino emphasized that Tether has no toxic assets. According to him, it is a profitable and overcapitalized structure built on a strong reserve base.
He added that the growth of Tether is part of a larger trend in which more and more people are moving away from traditional banks towards new financial solutions.
