Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on Macro, Bitcoin, and the Big Picture Power Shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Friday, February 2nd, and today we are talking about the surprising fact that Tether made more money last quarter than Goldman Sachs.

Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation,

come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit.0.ly slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, like I said, we have a mismatch of news for you here

today, and we are going to kick it off with Tether who has reported their strongest

quarterly earnings ever. The firm recorded a record profit of $2.9 billion in Q4,

according to their latest attestation conducted by auditing firm BDO. Tether said that their

operating profit came in at $1 billion, largely on the back of interest payments from their

treasury bond holdings. Appreciation in their gold and Bitcoin holdings contributed

to the balance of profits, contributing to a $2.2 billion increase in excess reserves. Tether's

excess reserves now stand at $5.4 billion, which completely offsets their secured loan book,

which forms part of the core reserves portfolio. Tether had previously pledged to reduce this loan

book to zero,

but appears to have decided that, at least for now, offsetting of risk is good enough.

The firm wrote in a statement,

While such secured loans are widely over-collateralized, Tether accumulated enough excess

reserves to cover the entirety of this exposure. This is in response to the community's

past expressed concerns about this part of the portfolio.

Tether also accumulated 8,888 Bitcoin in Q4, bringing the total value to around $2.8 billion.

If the firm sticks with their plan of buying additional Bitcoin with 15% of profits,

their next buy would be around 3,500 Bitcoin at current prices.

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