At a glance

  • Tether earned $1.5 billion in net operating profit in the third quarter of 2026 and $4.5 billion in the first nine months, mostly from US Treasury bills and reverse repurchase agreements, the company said on 30 Oct.
  • The figures come from an attestation by the accounting firm BDO covering Tether’s reserves report as of 30 Sep, according to the company.

Tether International published its third-quarter attestation on Friday, the company said.

Tether’s management asserts total assets of $191.45 billion and total liabilities of $183.50 billion, of which $183.47 billion relate to tokens issued, according to the release. That leaves an excess of $7.95 billion, up $3.8 billion from the end of the second quarter, Tether said.

Direct and indirect holdings of US Treasury bills total $132.4 billion, the company said. It described USDT issuance as “broadly steady” at $184 billion over the first nine months of the year.

Tether’s bitcoin holdings were worth $8.37 billion on 30 Sep, up from about $5.8 billion at the end of June, Cointelegraph reported. Tether said in August that KPMG US had completed its first full independent audit of its financial statements, but it has not made the audited statements public, Cointelegraph said.

“Our responsibility is to make sure USD₮ remains dependable when people need it most, including when markets and financial systems come under pressure,” chief executive Paolo Ardoino said in the release. “Generating $1.5 billion in net operating profit while maintaining nearly $8.0 billion in excess reserves gives us a strong foundation for that work.”

Context

The release came the day after the Binance hack. Ardoino said on 29 Oct that Tether had frozen more than 1.567 billion USDT linked to it, Decrypt reported. On 23 Oct, CryptoWatchDesk reported Senator Blumenthal’s letters to Tether and Nxum, which ask for records by 6 Nov.

What it changes for users

USDT holders do not receive the interest on the reserves; under Tether’s model, that income goes to Tether, as the profit figures show. An attestation checks the reserve figures on one date, 30 Sep here; it is not a full audit of the company’s accounts. In the EU, Coinbase converted EEA users’ USDT on 30 Oct because USDT is not authorised under MiCA.

Blumenthal’s deadline for Tether’s records is 6 Nov. For the basics, see what a dollar stablecoin is.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.