Tether Completes First Full Financial Audit

Tether has completed its first full independent audit of its annual financial statements, with KPMG US issuing a clean opinion on the stablecoin company’s 2025 accounts. The audit examined Tether’s balance sheet, income statement and cash flows for the year ending Dec. 31, 2025. It also covered the assets backing the company’s issued tokens and the corresponding liabilities. According to Tether, the audited financial statements showed that its reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.814 billion.

Unlike the quarterly reserve attestations Tether has published for several years, the full audit involved a broader independent review of the company’s financial statements and supporting evidence. This included transactions, systems, ownership records, asset valuations and counterparties. As part of the process, KPMG also physically inspected and counted Tether’s gold reserves, verifying individual gold bars rather than relying exclusively on records provided by custodians.

Tether said KPMG issued an unqualified opinion, concluding that the financial statements fairly represented the company’s financial position, operating results and cash flows in all material respects under US accounting standards.

Tether’s financial footprint continues to grow

Tether launched its USDT stablecoin in 2014 and has since developed into one of the largest companies in the crypto sector. The company generated more than $10 billion in net profit in 2025. In the second quarter of 2026, Tether reported $1.5 billion in net operating profit, with much of its earnings coming from interest generated by US Treasury holdings and repurchase agreements.

USDT remains Tether’s primary business and continues to lead the stablecoin market. Its market capitalization of approximately $183 billion represents around 61% of the $301 billion stablecoin market, more than double the roughly $72 billion market value of its closest competitor, Circle’s USDC, according to DefiLlama.

Tether expands beyond stablecoins

Tether has increasingly used its profits to invest in businesses outside its core stablecoin operations. This year, the company invested $20 million each in Argentine neobank Ualá and Brazilian crypto platform Mercado Bitcoin. It also led a $50 million funding round for AI-powered sleep technology company Eight Sleep.

The company has also expanded its tokenized gold operations. Physical reserves backing Tether Gold increased 9.5% during the second quarter. At the time of writing, XAUt was the largest tokenized commodity product, with approximately $2.7 billion in value, according to RWA.xyz.

Despite Tether’s continued expansion, CEO Paolo Ardoino has shown little interest in pursuing a public listing. Addressing speculation about a possible Tether IPO in June 2025, Ardoino wrote on X: “No need to go public.”

Sources:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/tether-completes-first-full-financial-audit-receives-clean-kpmg-opinion

https://tether.io/news/tether-completes-the-largest-inaugural-financial-audit-in-history/

https://x.com/paoloardoino/status/2087951005212123228

https://x.com/paoloardoino/status/1931428326201012311

https://defillama.com/stablecoins