Quoth the Raven
· QTR’s Fringe Finance
· 14 августа 2026, 08:02
· ⏱ 4 мин чтения
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Резюме
Tether's new KPMG audit is materially stronger than past attestations, but the author argues it does not undo two episodes of misstatement around USDT's dollar backing and reserve composition, so Tether still deserves skepticism. For markets, USDT remains a systemic stablecoin with lingering regulatory/counterparty risk, and the audit should not be read as full exoneration.
•The CFTC found Tether held sufficient fiat reserves to back all USDT on only 27.6% of days in a 26-month sample from June 2016 to February 2019; Tether paid a $41 million penalty in 2021 without admitting or denying the findings.
•The New York Attorney General reached an $18.5 million settlement with Tether, Bitfinex and related entities in 2021, finding Tether had at times claimed one-for-one USD backing when that was not the case and that funds moved between Tether and Bitfinex amid an approximately $850 million shortfall involving a third-party payment processor.
•Tether denied holding Chinese commercial paper in 2022, but documents released in 2023 forced it to acknowledge historical Chinese commercial paper, predominantly banking-sector paper; it maintained it never held Evergrande paper and suffered no losses.
•By October 2022, Tether said it had eliminated roughly $30 billion of commercial-paper exposure and replaced it with U.S. Treasury bills.
•The author calls the episodes 'getting caught in two lies meaningful misstatements to the public' — one about dollar-for-dollar backing and one about reserve composition — and says 'Fool me once, shame on you…'
•KPMG U.S. issued an unqualified opinion on Tether International's financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2025, confirmed to Bloomberg under AICPA standards; the author calls it meaningful progress but cautions readers to pay attention to what exactly was announced.