Tether said Thursday that KPMG U.S. issued a clean opinion on 2025 statements it first promised in 2017, showing reserves exceeding liabilities by $6.81 billion.
Key Points:
- KPMG U.S. gave Tether International an unqualified opinion on its 2025 accounts, the issuer's first full financial statement audit.
- Audited reserves topped liabilities by $6.81 billion at the end of 2025, but the buffer stood at $4.11 billion by June 30.
- Tether has not published the audited statements, and the token's gold and Bitcoin holdings still sit outside U.S. stablecoin rules.
KPMG Audit Verifies Tether Reserves
The review covered Tether International, S.A. de C.V., the entity behind Tether USD (USDT), and applied to the year that ended Dec. 31, 2025. A KPMG spokesperson separately confirmed the work, which the issuer has called the largest inaugural financial audit ever attempted, with roughly $184.6 billion of the token issued at the end of June.
Auditors tested transactions, systems, valuations, ownership records and counterparty relationships across the balance sheet, the income statement, the cash flow statement and changes in equity.
They also counted and inspected each gold bar the company holds, verifying identifying details during fieldwork rather than accepting paperwork supplied by custodians. Chief Executive Paolo Ardoino wrote on X that critics had spent years insisting a review on that scale could never be finished.
An unqualified opinion is the strongest conclusion an independent auditor can reach on a set of accounts. It confirms how the statements are presented, without endorsing the business or guaranteeing that redemptions will clear.
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USDT Transparency Gaps Remain
Tether has not released the underlying financial statements. That leaves reserve composition, the nature of the liabilities and the accounting treatments applied outside public view. The verified position is also more than seven months old, and the cushion has thinned since.
An attestation for the second quarter, prepared by BDO, reported $4.11 billion in excess reserves as of June 30, roughly half the $8.23 billion recorded three months earlier. Weaker gold and Bitcoin (BTC) prices drove most of that drop, even though net operating profit for the quarter reached $1.5 billion and gold holdings climbed above 146 tons.
Reserve composition also keeps the token outside American rules. The GENIUS Act, which President Donald Trump signed in July 2025, restricts payment stablecoin reserves to dollars, short-term Treasury bills and comparable liquid assets.
Gold and Bitcoin do not qualify, and tokens that fall short lose eligibility for listing on U.S. exchanges from July 18, 2028.
Tether Audit Follows Years Of Scrutiny
Tether first promised an audit in 2017, when it hired Friedman LLP, and that arrangement ended without a completed review, leaving quarterly reserve snapshots as the interim standard. In 2021 the company paid $18.5 million to settle New York attorney general claims about its backing, then absorbed a $41 million CFTC penalty over statements that the token was fully covered by dollars at the time.
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