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Points of Focus
- KPMG issued Tether’s first unqualified Big Four audit opinion on Aug. 13.
- Tether’s 2025 reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.814 billion.
- The audit does not resolve USDT’s asset mismatch with GENIUS Act reserve rules.
Tether announced on Aug. 13 that KPMG US completed a full independent audit of its 2025 financial statements and issued an unqualified opinion, the most positive form of opinion an auditor can give.
An incredible day ❤️
Tether has its financial audit by a big-four: KPMG US. https://t.co/sW3bmCQ6Tu— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) August 13, 2026
It is the company’s first complete audit from a Big Four company after more than a decade of relying on quarterly attestations from BDO Italia. These limited-scope reviews provide a single point-in-time snapshot rather than testing the underlying systems and controls.
As part of the process, KPMG physically counted and inspected every gold bar Tether holds, rather than relying on custodian reports, and tested the full balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statements. Tether’s audited reserves exceeded its liabilities by $6.814 billion as of Dec. 31, 2025, according to its chief financial officer, Simon McWilliams.
The audit answers a specific, quantified accusation
The result directly rebuts the finding at the center of Tether’s most damaging regulatory history. In 2021, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined Tether $41 million after determining USDt (USDT) was fully backed only 27.6% of the time across a 26-month stretch from 2016 to 2018, and the New York Attorney General separately levied an $18.5 million settlement over misrepresented reserves.
“For years, some detractors said an audit of Tether could not be completed,” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said. “We have once again proven them wrong.”
What the audit does not settle
A clean audit opinion confirms Tether’s assets exceed its liabilities under US generally accepted accounting principles. It does not confirm that USDT’s reserve composition qualifies as a permitted payment stablecoin under the GENIUS Act, which limits eligible reserves to cash, insured deposits, Treasury bills of 93 days or less, T-bill-backed repo agreements, and government money market funds.
By Tether’s own most recent disclosed composition, from its June 30, 2026, attestation, that statutory list excludes a meaningful share of what Tether actually holds: 146.2 tons of physical gold valued near $18.84 billion, 98,933 Bitcoin (BTC) valued near $5.80 billion, and $13.45 billion in secured loans together compose close to 20% of a balance sheet otherwise concentrated in Treasuries and repos.
That mismatch is the likely reason Tether structured USAT, its GENIUS Act-oriented product issued through Anchorage Digital, as a separate entity rather than attempting to bring USDT itself into statutory compliance. The audit strengthens Tether’s global credibility case and directly answers the CFTC’s 2021 backing finding, but it leaves the composition question, not the solvency question, as the one still standing between USDT and lawful US issuance.
What comes next
Circle, Tether’s largest competitor, has filed Big Four audited financials with the Securities and Exchange Commission every year since 2022. Tether has now closed that specific credibility gap.
Whether Tether’s gold, Bitcoin, and loan holdings shrink toward the GENIUS Act’s narrower asset list or stay parked outside it while USAT carries the compliance load is the balance sheet detail worth tracking next, not the audit opinion itself.
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