Tether has appointed a Big Four accounting firm to conduct its first full financial statement audit of the reserves backing its billions worth of USDT stablecoin. The company previously relied on periodic attestations, which offered limited snapshots of its assets at specific points in time.

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Tether recently announced that it generated more than 10 billion dollars in net profit in 2025 and ended the year with 6.3 billion dollars in excess reserves. The filing, which covers the period to 31 December 2025, shows total assets of about 192.9 billion dollars against 186.5 billion dollars of liabilities, all tied mainly to its USD₮ stablecoin .

Audit to Check USDT Reserves

The new audit will cover Tether’s assets, liabilities, internal controls and reporting systems. Management said the firm was selected through a competitive process but did not disclose which of the four global networks, Deloitte, EY, KPMG or PwC, secured the mandate.

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Tether described the engagement as operating at “Big Four audit standard”. It said it chose the Big Four firm through a competitive selection, arguing that its own operations already align with the standards such auditors expect.

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It added that the engagement will proceed to completion and that the review will assess how the company measures and reports the reserves backing USDT.

If Tether delivers a clean audit, it could decisively silence long-running “Tether is a scam” accusations and force every other stablecoin issuer to meet a new transparency bar. However, according to Simon Taylor, "If they don't, the GENIUS Act's foreign issuer loophole becomes the biggest regulatory debate of 2027."

Tether says its reserves consist mainly of U.S. Treasury bills, along with smaller allocations to gold, bitcoin and various loans. This mix has faced scrutiny from critics who question the liquidity and risk of some holdings, particularly during periods of market stress.

The full audit aims to address long-running questions over whether USDT is fully backed one-to-one by liquid reserves and to raise the level of disclosure in the stablecoin market.

USDT Supply Nears $186B

According to Tether, total USD₮ in circulation passed $186 billion after nearly $50 billion of new tokens were issued in 2025, with around 30 billion dollars created in the second half alone as demand for dollar liquidity increased in emerging markets, payments and trading.

Total reserve assets rose to nearly 193 billion dollars, leaving reserves above liabilities and supporting the token’s outstanding supply.

Tether’s holdings show a strong concentration in U.S. government debt. Direct U.S. Treasury securities exceeded 122 billion dollars at year-end, while total direct and indirect exposure, including overnight reverse repos, went beyond 141 billion dollars.

This level of exposure places the company among the larger holders of U.S. government debt globally, while its separate proprietary investment portfolio in areas such as AI, energy, media and fintech, worth more than 20 billion dollars, sits outside the reserves that back USD₮.

Tether also launched a U.S.-regulated stablecoin, USA₮, last year and appointed former White House crypto adviser Bo Hines as CEO of the new entity. It marked the stablecoin issuers push into the regulated U.S. market, signaling its intent to align more closely with domestic compliance standards under the new GENIUS Act.