A profitable quarter still ended with about half the buffer it started with, and the Big Four audit Tether commissioned in March has yet to produce an audited statement.
Original Image Credits: photodaria / Shutterstock.com
Posted August 3, 2026 at 8:31 am EST.
Tether reported roughly $1.5 billion in net operating profit for the second quarter on Friday, and disclosed in the same release that the cushion sitting between USDT holders and the company’s obligations had fallen to $4.11 billion, about half what it was three months earlier.
The BDO attestation puts total assets at $187.75 billion against $183.64 billion in liabilities as of June 30. Excess reserves stood just above $8.23 billion at the end of March. A quarter that generated $1.5 billion in profit therefore closed with roughly $4 billion less headroom than it opened with.
This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.
Subscribe here to get these updates in your email for free
Gold and Bitcoin Did the Damage
Profit and buffer moved in opposite directions because they sit in different parts of the balance sheet. Treasuries and repurchase agreements produced the earnings. The buffer absorbed markdowns on the assets Tether has spent two years accumulating. Gold slid about 15% to just over $4,000 an ounce, which cut the value of a bigger pile of metal to $18.84 billion from $19.84 billion. The bitcoin price used in the report dropped to $58,600 from $68,200, taking that position to $5.80 billion from $6.62 billion.
Tether bought through both declines, adding 14 tons of gold to reach 146.2 metric tons and about 1,796 BTC to reach 98,933. Those two holdings together now sit near $24.6 billion, close to 13% of total assets. Measured against the $184.6 billion of USDT in circulation, the remaining buffer works out at roughly 2.2%.
Chief Executive Paolo Ardoino presented the quarter as a stress test survived. “Through all of the volatility, USD₮ remained fully backed with our reserves still exceeding liabilities by $4.11 billion,” he said in the release. Tether also cut secured lending by $2.38 billion, or 15%, without naming borrowers or the collateral involved.
The Audit Has Still Not Landed
On the audit, Tether said in the quarterly release only that “the Big Four audit process continued.” The company engaged a Big Four firm in March for the first full audit of its reserves, and four months on the quarterly disclosure is still an attestation from BDO. The difference matters: an attestation confirms figures on a single date, while an audit examines how assets were valued and managed across the whole period. Circle, which issues USDC, already reports audited accounts.
USDT issuance grew just $446 million over the quarter, though Tether said its share of a shrinking stablecoin market climbed above 60%.
Related Listen: Stripe Bid $53B for PayPal: Who Actually Wins Stablecoin Payments?
AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.
Stablecoins,stablecoins,tether,USDT,yahoostablecoins,tether,USDT,yahoo#Tether #Earns #Billion #Reserve #Cushion #Halves #Billion1785772380
