Tether’s 2025 Earnings Dip 23% Yet Still Smash $10B Profit Milestone
Tether's profit machine slows—but still prints billions.
Revenue Rollercoaster
The stablecoin giant's earnings took a hit last year, sliding nearly a quarter. Yet even with that decline, the bottom line crossed a staggering threshold—profit topped ten billion dollars. That's the kind of 'downturn' traditional finance CEOs dream about during their morning golf rounds.
Beyond the Balance Sheet
A dip in earnings often signals trouble, but here, context is king. Hitting that profit pinnacle amidst a cooler market speaks volumes about entrenched dominance and operational scale. It's not just surviving the cycle; it's defining it.
The real story isn't the slip—it's the sheer altitude. When your 'off year' still lands you in the ten-figure club, you're playing a different game entirely. A game where the rules are written in code, not compliance manuals.
USD₮ issuance climbs as users seek dollar liquidity
In 2025, Tether issued almost $50 billion in new USD₮, the second-highest amount in its history.
About $30 billion of that came in the second half of the year alone. That pushed total USD₮ in circulation past $186 billion, the highest the company has ever reported.
Circulation jumped as traders, emerging market users, and payment providers needed fast access to digital dollars. Many were operating in places where banks are either broken or way too slow. By the end of the year, the number of USD₮ users hit 530 million globally.
Reserves also jumped. Total reserve assets ended the year at nearly $193 billion, keeping liabilities fully covered. The company kept its reserves clean. Only liquid assets were counted. The more experimental stuff was left out of the official backing pool.
CEO Paolo Ardoino said, “What matters about 2025 is not just the scale of growth, but the structure behind it. USD₮ expanded because global demand for dollars is increasingly moving outside traditional banking rails, particularly in regions where financial systems are slow, fragmented, or inaccessible.”
Paolo added that:- “USD₮, with its network effect and parabolic growth, has become the most widely adopted monetary social network in the history of humanity.”
Tether becomes major US debt holder while expanding side bets
Tether’s exposure to U.S. Treasuries hit a new peak in 2025. Direct Treasury holdings passed $122 billion, the most the company has ever held. When you add indirect holdings, including overnight reverse repo deals, the number grows to over $141 billion. This puts Tether NEAR the top of the list of non-government holders of U.S. debt.
The reserves that back USD₮ stay separate from the company’s riskier investments. Management made it clear that things like AI, energy, media, fintech, precious metals, agriculture, land, and peer-to-peer communication platforms (funded through the Tether Global Investment Fund SICAF S.A.) are not included in the reserve count.
That investment arm now manages more than $20 billion worth of bets, but none of it touches the official USD₮ backing.
Ardoino said, “This has been made possible by the trust accrued by our strong risk management setup, unprecedented in the financial sector, and the decisions we make around asset quality, allocation, and liquidity are designed to ensure USD₮ remains reliable and usable at a global scale, even during periods of extreme demand.”
Right now, Tether holds one of the biggest reserve war chests in the world, has more than half a billion users, and controls over $140 billion in U.S. government debt. The profit drop may raise eyebrows, but the numbers show a firm still sitting on a mountain of capital. That makes it hard to ignore.
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