Tether completes first full audit, KPMG finds $6.81B reserve surplus
DeFi & Yields ·
KPMG U.S. issued an unqualified opinion on Tether International's 2025 financial statements, the company's first complete audit, showing reserves exceeding liabilities by $6.81 billion.
The unqualified opinion is the highest result an audit can produce, and its issuance marks a shift from the periodic attestation reports Tether has relied on in the past. According to cryptopotato.com, the review covered Tether International's full 2025 financial statements rather than a snapshot of reserves at a single point in time.
As part of the process, KPMG physically verified Tether's gold holdings instead of relying solely on custodian reports, adding a layer of direct confirmation to the reserve figures. decrypt.co describes the exercise as Tether's inaugural financial audit, distinguishing it from earlier limited-scope reviews the company had published.
Tether itself has characterized the exercise as the largest inaugural financial audit in the firm's history, a framing repeated in its own announcement. tether.io states that Tether's chief executive pointed to the audit as a step toward setting a new industry standard, positioning it as a response to longstanding criticism of the company's transparency and financial practices.
Coverage of the audit has been picked up across multiple outlets, with theblock.co also reporting the clean opinion tied to USDT's issuer. The consistency across these accounts underscores that the $6.81 billion surplus and the unqualified opinion are the central, verified figures at the center of the announcement.
What remains unclear is how the audit process will be structured going forward, including whether KPMG or another firm will conduct recurring full audits on a set schedule, and how regulators or market participants will weigh this milestone against Tether's prior transparency record. The scope of future audits, and whether physical verification of reserves like gold becomes a standing practice rather than a one-time step, are points to watch.