Tether Clears Its First Major Audit. Critics Still Have One Strong Objection

What actually happened?

Tether, the issuer of the world's largest stablecoin (USDT, a token pegged to the value of the US dollar), announced on August 13, 2026, that the US arm of consulting firm KPMG had completed an audit of its 2025 financial statements. According to the company, the auditor issued what is known as an unqualified opinion. In practice, this means the auditor found no reason to raise reservations about the statements presented.

Both Kryptonovinky.cz and Kryptonovinky.sk report this consistently, stating that the opinion related to the 2025 financial statements. The Polish outlet Incrypted and CrypS.pl add that the audit was carried out by KPMG US, a member of the so-called Big Four audit firms, and that it examined both the reserves backing USDT and the reporting.

Why is this such a big deal for Tether?

Because it is the first time. According to both Kryptonovinky.cz and Kryptonovinky.sk, this is the very first full financial audit in the company's history. And crucially: Tether has been promising a full audit since 2017. For almost ten years, the company therefore operated without what is considered standard for a regulated financial entity.

Tether has long struggled with doubts about its transparency and about whether the billions in issued tokens are actually backed by real assets. CrypS.pl points this out. Until now, the company published what are known as attestations, meaning confirmations of the state of reserves at a specific date, which is a weaker form of assurance than a full audit of the entire financial statements.

How long was the wait for the audit?

According to Incrypted, the information that an external entity would review Tether's reporting emerged in March 2026. It later turned out to be KPMG US. The announcement of completion then came on August 13, 2026.

How large was the reserve surplus?

CrypS.pl gives a specific figure: at year end, reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.814 billion. In other words, according to the audited statements, Tether had more assets than the amount of its liabilities toward USDT holders.

And that one strong objection from critics?

Here we need to be honest. The headline of the original CrypS.pl text promises that critics still have one strong argument, but we were unable to verify the full wording of that objection from the available source excerpts. We do not want to guess at words we have not seen, so we leave this part flagged as unverified.

What does follow from the nature of an annual audit, and what is factually indisputable, is this: an audit of financial statements is a snapshot at a single point in time, typically at the end of the accounting period. It confirms the state at that date, not the ongoing, day-to-day backing in real time. This is a general feature of this type of assurance, not a specific accusation against Tether. For an issuer that mints and redeems tokens continuously, the difference between an annual audit and continuous monitoring is therefore significant, and it is exactly the kind of thing worth watching.

What does this mean for readers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia?

USDT is the most widely used stablecoin in Central European crypto wallets and on exchanges too. The news that it has passed a full audit by a Big Four firm with an unqualified opinion for the first time is therefore relevant here as well. But it is not a recommendation to do anything. It is information about what happened: after years of promises, Tether has provided an audited statement for one year.

What to watch for with this type of event going forward: whether the audit will be repeated and regular (a one-off audit and an annual audit are not the same thing), whether the company will make the full text of the auditor's report available, and how the state of reserves develops between individual periods.