Britain’s Financial Times on Thursday cited sources reporting that Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, has commissioned KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms, to conduct a comprehensive financial audit for its USDT, which has a market value of $185 billion.
At the same time, Tether has also hired another Big Four accounting firm, PwC, to assist in organizing and optimizing the company’s internal systems and financial processes in preparation for the upcoming audit. This is seen as the most substantial and groundbreaking step toward “financial transparency” since Tether’s establishment.
Tether’s CFO Simon McWilliams stated earlier this week that the company “has long operated in accordance with the auditing standards of the Big Four accounting firms” and promised that “the final audit report will be delivered to the public on time.”
This audit action comes as Tether prepares to enter the U.S. market and initiate a new round of financing. The Financial Times previously reported that Tether sought to raise $15 billion to $20 billion in the market with a staggering valuation of $500 billion, but due to excessively high pricing and potential regulatory risks, many institutional investors were deterred.
Currently, Tether’s reserve assets are primarily issued monthly by BDO Italia, the Italian branch of the fifth-largest accounting firm BDO, in the form of “attestation reports,” which are fundamentally different from a full financial statement audit that requires detailed examination of assets, liabilities, internal controls, and reporting systems.
Since its launch in 2014, doubts about whether USDT has sufficient U.S. dollar reserves have never ceased. Looking back to 2021, foreign media CoinDesk had previously requested the disclosure of USDT’s reserve details from the New York Attorney General’s Office under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), and Tether even went to court over it, resulting in two losses.
After a two-year legal battle, these confidential documents were finally exposed in 2023. Data showed that as of March 2021, the $40.6 billion in reserves held by Tether was largely deposited at Deltec Bank in the Bahamas and included significant holdings of commercial paper issued by Chinese and international banks, including Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China (Hong Kong), and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
These revelations sparked discussions in the market regarding liquidity and credit risk. However, in recent years, Tether’s asset allocation has gradually shifted toward short-term U.S. Treasury bonds, reducing its holdings of commercial paper.

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