Caught up in the BTC invisible operator conspiracy theory? Unveiling Tether's Bitcoin strategy

Author: Nancy, PANews

At the center stage of the 2025 Bitcoin Conference, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stood in front of an image of Wukong and said, “Bitcoin is my Wukong, it’s our friend.”

This seemingly emotional expression is, in fact, a reflection of Tether’s strategic core. As the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT, Tether is embedding itself in various aspects of the Bitcoin ecosystem with a builder’s mindset, from reserve asset allocation to mining operations, from ecological investments to infrastructure development. Tether is delving deep into the nerve center of the new global financial order.

Due to Tether’s deep penetration in the Bitcoin system, its actions have also sparked an increasing number of conspiracy theories and heated discussions abroad, questioning whether it artificially raises Bitcoin prices by continuously issuing USDT, thereby creating a “closed-loop bubble” that is interlinked with Bitcoin reserves, supported by gold, and driven by the issuance of USDT.

Establishing a Bitcoin reserve strategy, referred to as the only major buyer.

Since May 2023, Tether has announced that it will regularly allocate up to 15% of its realized net operating profit for the purchase of Bitcoin. Tether expects that the current and future holdings of Bitcoin in its reserves will not exceed the capital buffer for shareholders, and will further strengthen and diversify the reserves. As of the first quarter of 2025, Tether holds Bitcoin valued at approximately $7.66 billion, representing significant growth compared to the previous quarter.

The “gold + bitcoin” dual reserve mechanism is Tether’s hedge against the risks of sovereign fiat currencies and has brought substantial financial returns. Ardoino recently disclosed that Tether currently holds over 100,000 bitcoins and over 50 tons of gold. In 2024 alone, Tether’s net profit reached $13.7 billion, with investments in gold and bitcoin contributing approximately $5 billion in profits. Ardoino has stated that they hold gold not to challenge bitcoin, but to challenge the centralized fiat currency system.

However, Jacob King, the founder of WhaleWire, pointed out that “Tether is the only major buyer in the entire Bitcoin market, relying on constant money printing and taking over the market. It raises the price of Bitcoin by issuing new USDT and then sells the excess, buying US dollars and gold as reserves to prove its legitimacy.” He referred to this model as the “ultimate house of cards,” suggesting that the entire system may become unbalanced once stablecoins face regulation or Bitcoin demand diminishes.

Tether’s ambition for Bitcoin goes far beyond just hoarding coins. In April this year, Tether, in collaboration with SoftBank and Cantor, jointly initiated the establishment of a crypto investment joint venture called Twenty One Capital, aiming to create a global platform for Bitcoin asset acquisition and management, with a total scale of 3 billion USD. This platform is viewed within the industry as Tether’s structural layout to benchmark against MicroStrategy. In this joint venture transaction, Tether holds 42.8% of the equity and 51.7% of the voting rights in the joint venture, effectively holding the dominant power. Cantor, on the other hand, holds a 5% stake in Tether, with its CEO Brandon Lutnick being the son of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.

“Jack Mallers (CEO of Twenty One Capital) has a close relationship with the Tether and Bitfinex ecosystem, and his other company, Strike, has long had a close relationship with Tether. They claim to have a large market demand, but most of the Bitcoin in their reserves comes directly from Tether. This is a ‘shell game’ in a larger liquidity trick.” Jacob King stated on social media that if stablecoins face US regulation in the future, Tether will find it difficult to continue injecting liquidity, and the large net outflows of funds from Bitcoin spot ETFs in recent months indicate that institutions are rapidly retreating.

On-chain data shows that Twenty One Capital’s Bitcoin reserves come from Tether, which recently injected over 37,000 BTC worth nearly $4 billion through five transactions.

Tether has invested over $770 million in the video platform Rumble, which has also established its own Bitcoin treasury, claiming that Bitcoin has the potential to serve as an inflation hedge.

Building self-owned mines alongside strategic investments, aiming to become one of the largest miners in the world.

Tether’s ambitions go far beyond asset reserves. As early as 2023, Tether launched a renewable energy-driven Bitcoin mining project in Uruguay, utilizing the local abundant clean energy resources (such as hydropower and wind energy) to create an efficient and sustainable mining base. Following that, it participated in El Salvador’s volcanic energy program, becoming a capital force in promoting one of the world’s largest geothermal Bitcoin mining sites. Subsequently, Tether continued to expand its energy map in Latin America, with cumulative investments of $500 million in Uruguay, Paraguay, and El Salvador to build vertically integrated mining bases.

"El Salvador’s so-called Bitcoin investment is actually a well-made illusion. The bitcoins in its treasury were transferred directly from Bitfinex and Tether. Tether has even personally drafted all of El Salvador’s Bitcoin bills. But what many people don’t notice is that El Salvador has quietly abandoned the implementation of the Bitcoin fiat currency. Tether and its internal network can’t support all of this, because there is simply no real market demand. There is no clear evidence for some of Jacob King’s claims, but in February of this year, El Salvador did formally remove Bitcoin’s status as legal tender through the Bitcoin Act, and merchants and institutions are no longer forced to accept Bitcoin and cannot be used to pay taxes. Opinion polls show that the vast majority of the population has not benefited and that the economic situation has not improved.

In addition to building its own mining farms, Tether is also actively expanding its global mining footprint through investments and acquisitions. To date, it has invested in companies such as Bitdeer, Northern Data Group, Blockstream, and Swan Mining, covering areas including chip procurement, server manufacturing, data center construction, and enterprise-level computing power hosting, becoming an important lever to support Tether’s Bitcoin mining layout.

This year, Tether has taken a step further by announcing the deployment of computing power to the OCEAN mining pool, promoting the construction of decentralized Bitcoin mining infrastructure. At the same time, Tether recently announced plans to open source its Bitcoin mining software, a move that will allow new miners to enter the market without relying on expensive third-party vendors.

According to Ardoino’s disclosure at the Bitcoin 2025 conference, Tether has invested over $2 billion in the energy and infrastructure sectors, with actual investments in Bitcoin mining being even higher. It is expected that by the end of this year, Tether will become the world’s largest Bitcoin miner, a prediction that includes all publicly listed companies.

From the issuance on the Bitcoin chain to a full-stack layout of cultural penetration

Tether is advancing its full-stack strategic layout, continuously expanding the boundaries and influence of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

For example, on the technical level, apart from chains like Ethereum and TRON, Tether issues USDT to Bitcoin-based protocols through Omni, Liquid, Lightning, RGB, and supports popular Bitcoin sidechain networks like Plasma, which is expected to natively support USDT; in terms of wallet tools, Tether AI has launched a self-custody wallet WDK, which natively supports Bitcoin and USDT, allowing enterprises, applications, websites, and even AI Agents to connect, further lowering the threshold for Bitcoin financial infrastructure; in the payment ecosystem, Tether has donated to the open-source project BTC Pay Server to support the ongoing development and optimization of its open-source crypto payment processor.

In terms of culture and education, Tether co-hosted the Plan B Summit with the city of Lugano, Switzerland, and sponsored local football clubs to introduce the brand image of Bitcoin into European stadium culture; at the same time, through the Tether Education Program, it established partnerships with multiple universities worldwide to promote the dissemination of Bitcoin knowledge and cultivate the next generation of crypto natives. Twenty One Capital will also focus on the dissemination of Bitcoin-related knowledge in the future, creating educational content and video media, as well as developing a series of financial and consulting services related to Bitcoin.

“For me, the most important thing is that I can contribute to building a more accessible, resilient, and useful Bitcoin ecosystem. If I can play a role in areas like infrastructure, technology, and education, that would be enough. The story of Bitcoin has never been about any one person, but rather about the global community’s commitment to an idea—building the future steadfastly, even in the lows, even when misunderstood. If I can play a role in helping more people join the ecosystem and empowering them with sovereignty and security tools, that would be a mission worth remembering.” Ardoino recently stated in an interview with Bitcoin News.