Tether Limited Inc., the company behind the USDT stablecoin, announced Thursday that it has zeroed out its commercial paper holdings, replacing them with US Treasury bills.

Commercial paper is short-term unsecured debt issued by companies, so the value of the paper depends on the issuing company. Commercial paper is typically considered less reliable or less stable than other debt instruments such as US Treasury bills.

On Thursday, Tether revealed that it has now removed all commercial paper from its reserves. The firm said it has cut more than $30 billion of commercial paper at no loss and increased its direct exposure to US Treasuries by more than $10 billion in the latest quarter.

Stablecoin issuer USDT said the move is part of the company’s “ongoing efforts to increase transparency” and back its tokens with “the most secure reserves on the market,” in hopes of ensuring investor protection. . “Reducing commercial paper to zero demonstrates Tether’s commitment to backing its tokens with the safest reserves on the market,” Tether tweeted Thursday.

The tweet noted that zeroing out the balance of its commercial paper holdings was not only done to be a step towards greater transparency and trust for the company, but also for the entire stablecoin industry.

Currently, there are about 68.4 billion connection tokens in circulation, which means that USDT has a market capitalization of $68.4 billion.

Earlier this month, as reported by Blockchain.News, Tether reported reducing its commercial paper holdings to less than $50 million. As of September 30, the firm announced that it increased its US Treasury holdings to 58.1% of its total portfolio from 43.5% of its total portfolio as of June 30.

In the past, the company has said it would zero out its commercial paper holdings by the end of the year due to growing concerns about the stability of the Tether ecosystem and its stablecoin, USDT.

Last year, New York regulators imposed a multimillion-dollar fine on the company over concerns associated with the composition of its reserves. Since then, Tether has been committed to improving the quality of its reserves, in part by eliminating the amount of commercial paper it holds.

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