Key Takeaways
- Reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.814 billion at December 31, 2025; BDO’s June 30, 2026 attestation puts the same buffer at $4.11 billion, down 40% in six months
- Tether has not published the KPMG financial statements; the audit opinion has been announced but the underlying documents it covers have not been released
- An unqualified audit opinion verifies historical financial accuracy; it does not satisfy the GENIUS Act’s reserve composition, licensing, or monthly audit requirements for US market access
KPMG US issued an unqualified audit opinion on Tether International’s full 2025 financial statements, with Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino writing on X that “ No rock was left unturned. Tether has all the gold it says it has.”
Tether called the review the largest inaugural financial audit in history, saying KPMG examined its assets, liabilities, income, cash flows, internal systems, records, counterparties, and supporting documentation.
KPMG physically counted and inspected every individual gold bar held by Tether, verifying the existence and identifying information of each bar rather than relying solely on reports from custodians or counterparties.
An unqualified opinion is the strongest result available in a financial audit. It means the auditor found no material misstatements and that the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position and results of operations in accordance with US generally accepted accounting principles.
The audited financial statements reported that Tether’s reserves exceeded its liabilities by $6.814 billion at the end of 2025. Tether first promised a full financial audit in 2017 when it hired Friedman LLP. That relationship ended without one being completed. Nine years later, the audit has arrived.
Three Problems That Tether’s Full Audit Does Not Resolve
The first is the reserve buffer compression. Tether’s own BDO second-quarter attestation, published July 31, recorded $4.11 billion in excess reserves as of June 30, 2026, sitting roughly 40% below the $6.814 billion figure KPMG verified at December 31, 2025.
The KPMG opinion is dated almost 20 months before Aug.13’s publication. The reserve cushion it verified has since declined materially. The announcement of the audit result is not the same as current financial health.
The second is that Tether has not published the underlying financial statements KPMG audited. Bloomberg reported that Tether did not release the audit alongside its announcement.
An audit opinion confirms that financial statements present fairly. Without the statements themselves, counterparties, regulators, and analysts cannot examine the composition of the reserves, the nature of the liabilities, or the accounting treatments applied. The industry has been asking for a full audit for nearly a decade. The full audit is now complete, but the documents the audit verified remain unavailable.
The third is the GENIUS Act compliance gap, which is the most consequential for Tether’s commercial trajectory in the United States.
Why an Audit Is Not the Same as GENIUS Act Compliance
The GENIUS Act requires payment stablecoin issuers to maintain reserves consisting exclusively of US dollars, short-term Treasury bills, central bank reserves, and comparable high-quality liquid assets.
Tether holds nearly $60 billion in Bitcoin in its reserves, according to Arkham Intelligence data. Bitcoin is not a permitted reserve asset under the GENIUS Act.
Gold, which Tether also holds in significant quantity and which KPMG physically inspected bar by bar, is also not permitted. The audit verifies that those assets exist and are accurately reported. It does not make them GENIUS Act-compliant.
The compliance gap runs deeper than reserve composition.
The GENIUS Act requires monthly independent audits for issuers exceeding $50 billion in supply, formal licensing as a permitted payment stablecoin issuer, and a ban on paying holders interest. Tether has not applied for a GENIUS Act licence for USDT.
Its two-product answer to the US compliance challenge is USA₮, a separately issued token managed through Anchorage Digital that was designed for GENIUS Act compliance from the ground up. USDT’s global structure, including its Bitcoin and gold reserves, remains outside that framework.
The GENIUS Act deadline by which non-compliant stablecoins lose eligibility for listing on US exchanges is July 18, 2028. Aug.13 audit announcement is a meaningful transparency milestone, but it is not a compliance event.
The distinction between those two things is the distance between where Tether stands today and where it needs to be to remain accessible to American users through regulated channels in two years.
What Tether’s KPMG Audit Does Accomplish
Tether’s critics spent years arguing that a clean audit was impossible, that the reserves did not exist, and that USDT would eventually face a bank-run scenario that no attestation could prevent.
In 2021, Tether paid $18.5 million to settle with the New York Attorney General over claims about its reserves and a $41 million CFTC fine over misleading statements that USDT was fully backed by US dollars.
Today, a Big Four firm has put its name on an unqualified opinion confirming that Tether’s 2025 financial statements fairly represent the company’s position. That is not a small thing. It removes the most straightforward version of the solvency argument from the conversation permanently.
What it does not remove is the reserve composition question, the public statements question, the US licensing question, and the gap between what the GENIUS Act requires and what USDT currently provides. The audit verifies the past, but the compliance clock runs toward the future.
Top Trending Crypto Articles
The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be, nor should it be construed as, financial advice. We do not make any warranties regarding the completeness, reliability, or accuracy of this information. All investments involve risk, and past performance does not guarantee future results. We recommend consulting a financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
Dr. Guneet Kaur is a senior editor at CCN.com and a Science Fellow at Exponential Science. She is a fintech and blockchain expert with extensive experience in digital finance education, blockchain ecosystems, and cryptocurrency markets. She has worked with global media such as Cointelegraph, as well as education and blockchain platforms, to design and lead strategic content and learning initiatives. As an educator and assessor for top-tier executive programs, she bridges real-world fintech trends with academic insight.
Dr. Kaur is also a published researcher and peer reviewer across fintech and data science journals, including Financial Innovation Journal and International Journal of Big Data Intelligence and Applications. Her work spans data-driven analysis, Web3 innovation, and technical content development. With a strong foundation in both industry and academia, she translates complex financial technologies into practical applications, empowering learners, professionals, and institutions across the rapidly evolving digital finance landscape.
