First, the conclusion: there is currently no direct evidence to support this claim.

You may have heard of the name Jason Calacanis - a veteran investor in Silicon Valley, and also the "old rival" of Tether. He has criticized the idea of treating BTC as a reserve asset more than once on his podcast shows (such as "All-In Podcast" and "This Week in Startups").

What is his logic? If the price of the coin crashes, companies like Tether may have to sell Bitcoin for liquidity in order to survive, which would then trigger a "death spiral"—the more the price falls, the more they sell, and the more they sell, the further the price falls. It sounds pretty scary, but it seems more like his speculation on the show, rather than a nailed-down fact.

There is indeed a real data point: as of Q3 2025, Tether holds nearly 110,000 BTC (specifically about 109,410), with a market value exceeding 10 billion dollars. This scale is certainly eye-catching.