Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said at Lugano’s Plan B Forum on October 23–24 that the company holds roughly 150,000 BTC, worth about $11.5 billion at early-November prices. The third-quarter attestation prepared by BDO and published on October 30, however, lists only about 100,060 BTC among the assets backing USDT, leaving nearly 50,000 BTC outside the stablecoin reserve report and likely held in Tether’s proprietary investment book.
Tether’s reserve Bitcoin was valued at $8.37 billion as of September 30, up from about $5.8 billion at the end of June, but the coin count increased by only about 1,130 BTC. Total reserve assets reached $191.45 billion against liabilities of $183.50 billion, producing a surplus of $7.95 billion. Tether’s direct and indirect exposure to US Treasuries hit $132.4 billion, generating net operating profit of $1.5 billion in the third quarter and $4.5 billion over the first nine months of 2026.
Ardoino also said mining infrastructure developed by Tether and its partners has passed 50 EH/s, though Tether has not disclosed how much of that hashrate it owns outright. At an illustrative network hashrate of 1,000 EH/s, 50 EH/s would represent about 5% of total computing power and roughly 22.5 BTC in daily block subsidies before costs. Tether has open-sourced its Mining OS, released a Mining Development Kit, and introduced modular mining systems with Canaan and ACME Swisstech. Canaan has reported a follow-on order for these modules at a Tether-affiliated facility in South America.
Separately, Bitcoin mining difficulty has not printed a new all-time high in 374 days. The metric stands at 148.36 trillion after the October 29, 2026 retarget, still 4.88% below the record of 155.97 trillion set on October 29, 2025. Network hashrate is near 1.02 ZH/s, with a 30-day peak of 1.22 ZH/s. At spot Bitcoin around $75,577, daily issuance of 450 BTC is worth about $34 million, equating to roughly $33.4 per petahash per second per day before fees. A current-generation machine rated at 20 joules per terahash breaks even at roughly 7.0 cents per kilowatt-hour, leaving high-cost mining operations under pressure.
Core Scientific’s third-quarter results illustrate the shift from pure mining to contracted infrastructure. Colocation revenue rose nearly 60% sequentially to $215.4 million, with 485 megawatts billed as of September 30. Net income of $1.2 billion came mainly from a non-cash gain in the fair value of warrants, not from mining. The next difficulty retarget around November 12 would require a 5.1% increase to clear the record, but current hashrate trends do not yet show that capacity being sustained.
The disclosures reinforce Tether’s dual role as both a large Bitcoin holder and a growing mining infrastructure provider. They also arrive as the Bitcoin network consolidates below its difficulty record while public miners increasingly shift revenue toward colocation and away from direct hashprice exposure.
