Tether secures majority stake in Nasdaq-listed VCI Global following $100M OOBIT deal

Stablecoin issuer Tether has become the largest shareholder of Nasdaq-listed technology consulting services firm VCI Global, following a $100 million digital asset transaction involving OOBIT’s native token OOB.

Tether will be entitled to shares in VCI Global as part of the company’s $50 million restricted share issuance to the OOB Foundation, where it will gain indirect ownership through its existing stake in OOBIT.

VCI Global is a cross-sector technology platform developer, and it hopes to position itself as a key player in the digital asset space by integrating OOBIT’s token utility into its AI, fintech, and sovereign data platforms.

OOBIT is a mobile crypto payments platform that is backed by Tether, CMCC Global, and Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko. Tether led OOBIT’s $25 million Series A funding round back in February 2024.

VCI Global has already acquired $50 million worth of OOB tokens through the restricted share issuance and will purchase an additional $50 million using cash purchases after the OOB tokens are publicly launched.

OOBIT is currently rebranding the token and migrating it from Ethereum to Solana. According to the official announcement, the process is expected to be completed by November 12. See below.

As Tether is already the largest stakeholder in OOBIT, it will indirectly receive a notable portion of the newly issued VCI Global shares through the OOB Foundation, effectively making it the largest shareholder of the Nasdaq-listed firm.

Tether has long employed strategic investments as a means to expand its footing outside the stablecoin market, where its flagship stablecoin USDT commands the largest market share with a total market cap of $183 billion.

Just a day ago, Tether-backed video platform Rumble announced plans to acquire German data center operator Northern Data, which also counts Tether among its major investors and financial backers. Earlier this year, Tether acquired a minority stake in Bit2Me, a leading Spanish digital asset platform, and in February, the stablecoin issuer made a strategic investment in the Zengo wallet to drive global adoption of self-custody and stablecoin-based payments.

And the company’s approach appears to be paying off. Last month, Tether became a top 20 global holder of U.S. debt after reporting over $10 billion in year-to-date profit and disclosing $135 billion in exposure to U.S. Treasuries, ranking ahead of sovereign holders like South Korea.