USDTether Gets First Full KPMG Audit With Clean Opinion
Review covers annual financial statements, reserve backing and physical gold verification
TL;DR
- KPMG U.S. issued Tether an unqualified opinion after auditing its full annual financial statements.
- The review went beyond Tether’s previous quarterly reserve attestations and included transactions, valuations, counterparties and physical gold inspection.
- Tether’s complete signed audit report and audited financial statements were not attached to its announcement.
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Tether said on August 13, 2026, that KPMG U.S. completed the first full annual financial-statement audit of Tether International, S.A. de C.V., covering the year ended December 31, 2025, and issued an unqualified opinion. The audited accounts showed Tether’s reserves exceeded liabilities tied to issued tokens by $6.814 billion.
An unqualified, or clean, opinion means KPMG concluded that Tether’s financial statements fairly presented its financial position, operating results and cash flows in all material respects under the applicable U.S. accounting framework. Tether said the accounts were prepared under U.S. GAAP and the audit was conducted under AICPA auditing standards. Descriptions of the engagement as a PCAOB audit go beyond what Tether disclosed.
KPMG examined Tether’s balance sheet, income statement, cash flows, changes in equity and supporting records. Tether said the work also covered transactions, systems, ownership records, valuations and counterparties across the wider business, making the engagement broader than the reserve-focused reviews the stablecoin issuer had previously published.
Tether called the engagement the “largest inaugural financial audit in history,” although that characterization could not be independently verified from the company’s announcement. The clean opinion does not guarantee that USDT will always maintain its peg or eliminate future financial, market or liquidity risks affecting Tether or the assets it holds.
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Audit goes beyond quarterly reserve attestations
Tether had published quarterly reserve attestations through BDO for years. Those engagements assessed specified reserve information at a particular point in time, while the KPMG audit examined the company’s annual financial statements and a broader set of transactions and accounting records. Deloitte separately reviewed reserves supporting Tether-linked USAt earlier in 2026, but that engagement was also focused on specified reserve information rather than Tether International’s full annual financial statements.
Tether’s balance sheet includes U.S. Treasuries, gold, Bitcoin, secured loans and other investments. The company has more than $140 billion in U.S. Treasury exposure and has become one of the world’s largest holders of U.S. government debt. The composition of the portfolio remains relevant because short-term Treasuries, Bitcoin, gold and secured lending carry different liquidity and volatility characteristics, while excess reserves provide protection only to the extent the underlying assets can absorb losses.
KPMG also physically counted and inspected every individual gold bar held by Tether, according to the company, including identifying information attached to each bar. The procedure went beyond relying solely on internal ledgers or custodian statements and provided independent evidence that the physical gold recorded in Tether’s accounts existed.
Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s CEO, said the completed audit addressed years of criticism over whether the company would submit to a full independent financial review. “For years, some detractors said an audit of Tether could not be completed. They said the Company refused to subject itself to the most rigorous scrutiny. We have once again proven them wrong. Completing our financial statement audit sets a new standard for the industry and reflects the leadership we’ve brought to this market from the start,” Ardoino said.
Tether’s Chief Financial Officer Simon McWilliams said the audited financial statements supported the company’s previous reserve attestations, linking the broader annual audit to the reserve disclosures Tether had already been publishing.
Audit follows years of scrutiny over USDT backing
The KPMG opinion follows longstanding scrutiny of Tether’s reserve disclosures. In 2021, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission ordered Tether to pay a $41 million penalty over statements concerning USDT’s backing after finding that the company had represented the stablecoin as fully backed by corresponding fiat reserves during a period when that was not consistently the case.
The CFTC also cited earlier statements about professional audits when Tether had not completed one. KPMG’s opinion does not change what happened during that period, but the completed engagement means Tether can no longer accurately be described as having never completed a full annual financial audit.
Tether also says its products are used by more than 650 million people. That figure comes from Tether and should not be treated as a user count independently verified by KPMG.
This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.
