Tether Says KPMG Signed Off on Its 2025 Books, Closing Out a Promise That Dated to 2017

Tether said Thursday it completed its first full financial statement audit, with KPMG U.S. issuing an unqualified opinion on the 2025 accounts of Tether International, S.A. de C.V., the entity that issues the USDT stablecoin. An unqualified opinion, also called a clean opinion, comes without reservations, exceptions or caveats and is the strongest verdict an independent auditor can deliver.

The audit covered the year ended Dec. 31, 2025 and was conducted under standards set by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Tether said. The statements showed reserves exceeding liabilities by $6.814 billion, according to the company. KPMG examined transactions, systems, ownership records, valuations and counterparties, and physically counted and inspected every gold bar Tether holds rather than relying on reports from custodians, Tether said.

The GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, requires stablecoin issuers above $50 billion in volume to undergo annual audits. USDT’s market capitalization exceeds $180 billion. Tether has not published KPMG’s report.

CEO Paolo Ardoino treated the result as vindication, saying detractors had claimed for years that an audit of Tether could not be completed. CFO Simon McWilliams said it was “one of the most ambitious projects in the company’s history.”

Tether said in March it had hired an unnamed Big Four firm for the work; the Financial Times reported at the time that the auditor was KPMG and that Tether had also retained PwC to ready its internal systems. Thursday’s announcement made no mention of PwC.

The company has been promising an audit since a 2017 engagement with Friedman LLP that ended without a report. 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 statements that USDT was fully backed by dollars. It has since published quarterly attestations, now prepared by BDO Italia, which capture reserves and liabilities at a single date rather than testing the books as a whole.

Related Listen: Stripe Bid $53B for PayPal: Who Actually Wins Stablecoin Payments?

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