Tether’s accumulation of United States Treasuries puts the stablecoin issuer on a path to enter the top five foreign holders by 2033 under a realistic acceleration case, based on current balances, stated purchase activity, and the moving threshold set by the U.S. Treasury’s TIC data.
The projection assumes Tether continues adding to its book at a higher annual net pace each year, while the fifth-place line among foreign holders continues to shift.
As of June 30, the firm held about $127 billion of U.S. Treasury exposure, split between roughly $105.5 billion of direct bills and $21.3 billion of indirect exposure.
This places Tether 18th in the list of foreign U.S. Treasury holders at present, and was the 7th largest buyer of 2024.
According to the same disclosures, Tether’s reported net additions in 2024 were $33.1 billion, which equates to roughly $2.8 billion per month. Quarter-to-quarter changes in early 2025 indicate a run rate in line with that annual figure.
According to the U.S. Treasury’s Major Foreign Holders table, July 2025 placements show Japan at about $1.15 trillion as the largest foreign holder, with the fifth-ranked holder, Belgium, at roughly $428 billion, a custodial look-through that is volatile month to month.
For scale, the Federal Reserve reported roughly $4.20 trillion in Treasuries on its balance sheet in early October 2025, and Treasury data placed outstanding Treasury bills around $5.78 trillion at mid-year, which puts Tether’s holdings near 2 percent of the bill market.
These reference points frame the size of the gap Tether needs to close and the capacity of the market it taps.
The table below summarizes scenario bands for Tether’s rise to the top 5.
| Assumption set | Acceleration (a) | Bar growth (g) | Years from mid-2025 | Projected year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base pace, slow bar | $0B/yr² | $0–$10B/yr | ~9–13 | 2034–2038 |
| Modest accel, slow bar | +$5B/yr² | $0–$10B/yr | ~6–7 | 2031–2033 |
| Modest accel, faster bar | +$5B/yr² | $30B/yr | ~8–13 | 2033–2039 |
| Higher accel, faster bar | +$8B/yr² | $30B/yr | ~8 | 2033 |
The parameters reflect both Tether’s recent cadence and the documented volatility in the fifth-place ranking.
Calculation transparency (skip if you hate formulas)
The projection uses a simple, transparent model that ties to those public series.
Let S0 be $127 billion at mid-2025.
Let r0 be the current net addition pace, $33.1 billion per year.
To capture an “accelerating buys” path, let the annual net addition increase by a constant a each year, so Tether’s total after t years is S(t) = S0 + r0*t + 0.5*a*t^2.
The top five bar is not static, so let B(t) = B0 + g*t, where B0 is $428 billion and g is the average annual change in the fifth place threshold.
The crossing occurs when S(t) equals B(t).
The choice of g matters because the fifth place line incorporates custodial flows, including shifts into and out of European safekeeping, that can move by tens of billions without a change in underlying end ownership.
Belgium’s year-over-year move into July 2025 was more than $100 billion, which is not a stable baseline. So, a range for g is applied that brackets slower and faster historical periods rather than anchoring on a single outlier month.
Calculating Tether’s rise
Under a modest acceleration, for example, a equals $5 billion per year squared, Tether would add $33.1 billion in the first year, $38.1 billion in the second, then $43.1 billion, and so on.
If the fifth-place bar grows slowly, for example, g equals $10 billion per year, the crossing will occur near the 2032 to 2033 window.
If the bar grows faster, for example, g equals $30 billion per year, the crossing moves toward the mid-2030s.
Absent acceleration, the same gap would take roughly a decade at today’s pace and is highly sensitive to where Belgium, the United Kingdom, China, and custodial centers trend.
The composition of top holders is exposed to custody location choices by offshore funds and banks that safekeep Treasuries for clients, which is why Belgium’s line swings more than changes in Japan, the United Kingdom, or China.
Using a corridor for g rather than a single historical delta aligns the projection with how that custodial channel behaves through rate cycles and balance sheet shifts.
The model does not impute growth from new stablecoin competitors, nor does it assume abrupt policy changes in reserve composition. It also does not ascribe any premium or discount to Tether’s indirect exposures that roll down from money funds.
How Tether can become the top foreign holder of T-Bills.
A separate question is whether Tether could become the largest foreign holder. Setting Japan’s July 2025 level at roughly $1.15 trillion as the target and applying the same accelerating buy path for Tether, the crossing times are longer and depend on Japan’s trends.
If Japan’s holdings increase by an average of $20 to $40 billion per year, a value of $5 billion per year squared yields a late 2030s to mid-2040s crossing, and a value of $8 billion per year squared can bring the window forward by several years.
The arithmetic is straightforward; the gap from $127 billion to more than $1 trillion is about one trillion dollars, which requires sustained issuance growth, persistent demand for bills and short coupons at Tether’s scale, and stablecoin market expansion that supports continuous net reserve inflows.
The central bank’s Treasury portfolio remains above $4 trillion, making a top overall ranking irrelevant to any feasible horizon for a private issuer.
The mechanics behind these paths are observable in Tether’s statements and the structure of its reserves. The reserve mix is concentrated in cash and T-bills that ladder through short maturities, and interest income provides a secondary flywheel that can be retained or paid out.
If the firm reinvests a portion of that income into bills and maintains net issuance of USDT as market share grows, the acceleration parameter a remains positive over multiple years.
Conversely, if stablecoin demand slows or if Tether allocates more toward non-Treasury investments, the effective acceleration would fall toward zero, which delays the crossing relative to the scenarios shown here.
Treasury’s bill market size can absorb additional purchases, and the public float grows as the Department of the Treasury manages cash balances. However, program composition, including the relative use of bills versus coupons, will affect how much of Tether’s incremental demand lands in the bill sector over time.
So, will Tether really breach the top 5?
The fifth-place bar is not merely a function of country-level current account flows. Holdings are recorded at the location of the foreign holder that is the owner of record, which means custodial centers can stand in for ultimate beneficial owners in multiple jurisdictions.
That is the practical reason to treat g as a range rather than a point estimate.
For editorial clarity, the crossing year in the headline, 2033, pairs a modest, documented acceleration of Tether’s purchases with a conservative band for the top five threshold.
If Belgium’s reported holdings retreat due to custody shifts, the crossing could arrive earlier. If other hubs accumulate more quickly, or if more offshore funds consolidate safekeeping in Europe, the crossing moves out.
The final test for a forward look is whether the stablecoin market can support the reserve scaling implied by the scenarios.
Recent market data suggest that the sector is capable of funding several tens of billions of net new bills per year to private nonbank balance sheets.
That pace, in combination with retained interest earnings and USDT issuance growth, provides the base case for a positive a.
The uncertainty around the top five is mainly the moving bar, not the availability of supply. The scale of foreign official and private holdings, and the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet level, place Tether’s target in context and translate the scenario into a tractable set of numbers.
The issuer’s Treasury position and net additions create a credible route to a top-five ranking by 2033, provided annual net purchases continue to step up from today’s pace and the fifth-place threshold grows within the historical bands used here.
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