The issuer of USDT, Tether Limited, has resumed lending in its own stablecoin, a year after assurances that such practice had ceased. The The Wall Street Journal reports.
In February, the company took a commitment to reduce collateralized loans by the end of the year.
According to the latest report, the volume of loans issued in the second quarter rose from $5.3 billion to $5.5 billion.
The issuer does not disclose borrowers or collateral. The publication noted that Tether Holdings cannot be 100% confident in recovering funds and 100% collateral coverage.
“In the second quarter we received several requests for short-term loans from clients with whom we have long-standing relationships. The company decided to satisfy these requests,” — said the spokesperson for Tether Holdings, Alex Welch.
According to the representative, the loans will be repaid by 2024. She declined to provide further details.
Earlier, Tether reported a net profit of $850 million in the second quarter. According to the document, 85% of the collateral backing USDT consists of cash and cash equivalents.
In May, CTO Paolo Ardoino said that high profitability of the issuer provides the opportunity to explore new business lines.
Later it became known that Tether invested $1 billion in a bitcoin-mining project in El Salvador. Subsequently the issuer allocated $420 million for the purchase of Nvidia chips in exchange for a 20% stake in the mining company Northern Data.
In March 2023, Tether claimed bias by WSJ journalists.
Three months earlier, the issuer called an article about USDT in the publication “the hypocrisy of the media, asleep at the wheel of information.”