Crypto Giant Tether up Juventus Stake to 10%

Join us for the first ever Sports Blockchain Summit hosted in partnership with JohnWallStreet!

Tether’s Juventus Story ⚫️ ⚪️ 

The last time I wrote about Tether taking a 5% stake in Juventus, I framed the piece by asking:

Well, that question needs to be asked again — but this time, with the context that Tether has now acquired 10% of Juventus.

Let’s quickly summarise the story so far:

• In early March 2025, crypto giant and USDT stablecoin issuer Tether reportedly acquired more than 5% of Juventus, with regulator Consob being notified after they crossed the 5% regulatory threshold of Juventus’ voting rights.

• With Juventus's current market capitalisation of 1.2 billion euros, a 5% stake is worth approximately 60 million euros.

• The Agnelli family's holding company Exor, which controls 64% of Juventus (and also owns Ferrari), has not sold any shares to Tether, and have consistently denied any plans to sell the club.

• Tether CEO Paulo Ardoino described the move as a "strategic investment" that will help Tether become a "pioneer in merging new technologies, such as digital assets, AI, and biotech, with the well-established sports industry to drive change globally”.

• On April 15, 2025, Tether acquired additional shares in Juventus Football Club, bringing its total participation to over 10.12 % of the issued share capital, representing 6.18% of voting rights.

• In the same announcement, it was clarified that the initial share acquisition was worth 8.2% rather than the ~5% initially reported.

Before we get into this, let’s look at Tether themselves as a refresher.

Who Are Tether? 🤔

Tether is behind USDT, the largest stablecoin in the cryptocurrency market, with a market capitalisation exceeding $145 billion. Stablecoins have become the first example of product-market fit in crypto, with the supply over $225 billion, which is up from ~$140 billion year-on-year.

Digital dollars that settle instantly, 24/7, 365 days a year and allow those in the global south to hedge inflation risk seem to be catching on.

The way Tether works in practice is simple. It maintains reserves that back each USDT stablecoin token with a corresponding value in traditional assets, acting as a proxy for the U.S. dollar.

While historically controversial due to questions surrounding their reserves, Tether has recently adopted more transparent reporting practices. Their most recent transparency report from December reveals that the bulk of their $143+ billion in reserves are in U.S. Treasury bills.

The stablecoin giant announced that their 2024 net profits exceeded $13 billion, making it one of the most profitable companies in crypto and one of the most profitable companies on the planet per employee.

Their business model is very simple:

• Tether take treasury bills and other U.S. dollar equivalents, issue USDT onchain, and make money from the interest.

• They have diversified their income through investments; Bitcoin, gold and beyond (Football clubs).

Tether has been aggressively expanding their portfolio of late, with the minority stake in Juventus being the latest in a lengthy line of acquisitions. Most notably, they made headlines in late 2024 with a reported $750m investment in video platform 'Rumble'. This marked their first significant venture outside the cryptocurrency space. In February 2025, Tether made a bid for a majority stake in $1 billion LatAm Agriculture business Adecoagro, taking a 70% stake.

Analysis & Concluding Thoughts 🧠

There is a lot to unpack here, again, so let’s take this step by step because there are so many questions to be answered.

1) I’m not surprised by this at all.

In my 2025 predictions, my most speculative prediction, but one that I hunch on was; Crypto[dot]com buying a sports team.