Tether holds more American government debt than most countries on earth, employs a few hundred people, and sells one product: a dollar, for a dollar.
This is how that business works — you send a dollar, you get a token, and Tether keeps the interest on the government debt it buys with your money. It earned billions doing it. But the thing that made it profitable wasn't a strategy. It was the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, which Tether had no say in at all.
Part 1 of THE STABLECOIN WARS.
NUMBERS & SOURCES
• $115B — US Treasury bills Tether held directly at 30 June 2026 (Tether Q2 2026 attestation, prepared by BDO). Counting reverse repo and money-market funds, Tether's total Treasury exposure is ~$141B (Q1 2026). Attestations are not a full audit.