Gold and Bitcoin Are Hedges, But Why Is a Stablecoin Company Buying Farmland?
Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, has spent $600 million shopping for majority management of a South American farming conglomerate, including land to a reserve technique that already consists of billions in gold and Bitcoin (BTC).
The transfer follows a clear audit from KPMG, one of many Big Four accounting corporations. However, Tether’s personal reserve buffer has since fallen 40%, elevating questions on its scarce-asset hedges.
Farmland Joins Gold and Bitcoin within the Reserve Mix
Tether acquired roughly 70% of Adecoagro, a Nasdaq-listed agribusiness farming greater than 200,000 hectares throughout Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. The deal grew to about $600 million in September 2025, and adopted an preliminary $100 million stake purchased in 2024.
Analysts have described the acquisitions as diversification, following the identical logic behind Tether’s gold and Bitcoin holdings. Tether itself has known as these belongings a hedge in opposition to greenback debasement and inflation. It additionally plans to make use of the farmland’s renewable vitality to energy Bitcoin mining.
Ardoino describes Tether as “in all probability the biggest proprietor, land proprietor in South America,” noting the agribusiness runs lots of of 1000’s of sheep and cattle and produces milk and rice. He framed the holding as a part of the identical logic driving Tether’s gold and Bitcoin positions — a hedge in opposition to systemic instability reasonably than a typical funding.
“This is once we take into consideration the steadiness of the world that has to come back by way of actual tangible belongings,” he said, including that Tether has to stay “a firm that survived to the worst case situation.”
Tether’s Business Also Include US Treasuries.
Meanwhile, Tether stays one of many world’s largest holders of US Treasuries. Its exposure last stood at roughly $141 billion, disclosed in its first-quarter 2026 attestation. That leaves the corporate betting on scarce, exhausting belongings. Yet it nonetheless anchors most of its steadiness sheet to the very foreign money it hedges in opposition to.
KPMG’s first full audit confirmed reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.8 billion on the finish of 2025. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino called the outcome a clear audit, the strongest opinion an auditor can problem. However, Tether has not revealed the underlying audited statements.
Tether’s personal June attestation, a quarterly reserve snapshot reviewed by BDO, put that very same buffer at simply $4.1 billion. That is a drop of roughly 40% in six months, pushed largely by unrealized losses on gold and bitcoin.
Those are the very belongings meant to guard Tether’s steadiness sheet. Farmland provides a additional complication, since land can’t be offered rapidly if Tether ever wants money quick.
Whether Tether’s scarce-asset technique in the end strengthens its place or provides new threat stays unclear. KPMG’s full report, nonetheless unpublished, may settle that query as soon as it reaches the general public.
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