The Tether (USDT) stablecoin issuer is raising the bet on Bitcoin (BTC) mining by issuing a major debt facility to German-based BTC mining company Northern Data AG.
Northern Data AG has secured a 575-million-euro ($610 million) debt financing facility from Tether to drive further investments across its businesses, according to an announcement on Nov. 2.
The debt capital specifically aims to enable Northern Data Group to invest in its three business lines, including its artificial intelligence cloud service provider Taiga Cloud, Ardent Data Centers and Peak Mining, the company’s mining business.
The focus of these investments will be on the acquisition of additional hardware and scaling Bitcoin mining operations with liquid-cooling mining technology, the announcement notes. The debt facility is unsecured, at standard market conditions, and has a term until Jan. 1, 2030.
Tether chief technology officer and CEO Paolo Ardoino said that the loan facility is intended to be drawn throughout 2024. “It will be covered using the company’s profits and will not be part of Tether’s stablecoin consolidated reserves and in fact done via a separate investment vehicle under the Tether Group to have proper segregation,” Ardoino emphasized.
Tether has been achieving an average of $1 billion per quarter in net operating results due to the high interest rates on U.S. Treasury Bills, the CEO noted, adding:
“A significant portion of these profits has been prudently retained within our reserves, contributing to the accrual of excess reserves. This strategy has enabled us to overcollateralize our stablecoins by as much as 104%.”
Additionally, Tether has been planning to reinvest a minor portion of its profits in data, energy and peer-to-peer communications infrastructure, Ardoino stated.
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The debt financing comes after Tether acquired a stake in Northern Data. In September 2023, the USDT issuer invested an undisclosed amount in Northern Data in a move aimed at backing AI initiatives. Tether claimed the investment was separate from its reserves and would not impact customer funds. Tether has been actively moving into Bitcoin mining operations in 2023, launching its own mining operations and introducing proprietary mining software.
According to Tether’s Q2 attestation from accounting firm BDO, the stablecoin company increased its excess reserves by $850 million, bringing total excess reserves to $3.3 billion. In September 2023, it was also reported that its stablecoin loans surged despite the company working to cut such loans to zero last year.
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