Tether Reveals $4.5 Billion Q1 Profit, CZ Sentenced to "4" Months in Prison
May 1, 2024
Market Update Risk markets were selling off before today's FOMC meeting where it was unanimously voted to keep interest rates steady. The Fed announced it would be reducing the speed of its balance sheet taper from $60 billion per month to $25 billion per month, a larger than expected reduction. Following the announcements and Chair Powell’s comments, yields turned sharply lower with the US10Y falling 9 basis points while equity indices rose. The $SPY and $QQQ have gained by 1.17% and 1.24%, respectively. #BTC (-2.70%) has pared losses to $59k after reaching a low of $56.5k early this morning, while #ETH (-0.67%) is trading just below $3k. Despite the large drop in Bitcoin, altcoins are showing relative strength, with Bitcoin’s dominance ratio dropping 1.57%. Layer-2 networks are a few of the leaders in the top-100 tokens today, with #OP, #MATIC, and #STRK all increasing by more than 4%. Tether released its Q1 attestation showing a record-breaking $4.52 billion first-quarter profit. The majority of profits came from mark-to-market gains in Bitcoin and Gold positions, and approximately $1 billion came from issuing stablecoins and managing underlying reserves, mainly from US Treasury holdings. Tether’s total direct and indirect treasury holdings exceed $90 billion. Te