There has been a long debate about Tether's financial security. Tether's U.S. Dollar Peg Is No Longer Credible However, the company behind the world’s largest stablecoin disclosed a report aiming to show “transparency commitment” to clarify whether Tether’s reserves are fully backed or not.
Tether Holdings Limited published its Assurance Opinion issued by an auditing firm, Moore based in the Cayman Islands.
Tether Holdings Limited stated that USDT tokens have “always been fully backed. Per the Moore’s report:
- Consolidated total assets amount to at least $35,276,327,156
- Consolidated total liabilities amount to $35,154,786,806 of which $35,111,966,857 relates to digital tokens issued.
From this report, the group’s consolidated assets exceed its consolidated liabilities. With the report, Tether Holdings Limited issued a comment in regards to the findings:
Tether has always been fully backed, and the assurance opinion we made available today confirms it once again. As Tether’s growth in the market continues to validate our business, we understand the public’s interest in this matter and are pleased to share this attestation as part of our ongoing commitment to transparency.
So has the Assurance Opinion and Tether statements reassured the skeptics? Probably not, there are still some legal issue that make people wonder whats really going on. The New York State Attorney General’s office recently concluded its long-running probe into Tether’s operations and fined the company $18.5 million as part of a settlement agreement.
As part of its investigation into Tether, the New York AG’s office determined that a previous “transparency update” regarding Tether’s reserves was “misleading”—the note included a bank statement, but didn’t disclose that many of the funds had been deposited in the bank that same morning. Before that date, according to the Attorney General’s office, it’s unclear how much money Tether actually had.
The Assurance Opinion is a good gesture, but some critics are citing Tether had $35.3 billion on February 28, supporting the $35 billion in Tether circulating at that time, but what about before this date? The Assurance Opinion only looks at a single moment in time, so we can’t know what what has happened in the past. With the fines from the AG it makes me think there was issues previously, but maybe they are covered. I'd like to see a complete audit that would provide a broader picture of Tether’s holdings and examine activity over a longer period of time.
This is a major issue that the opposition to crypto has been using to preach about the unregulated systems. want to put this FUD to bed and just get on with mass adoption!
