Tether hires a 'Big Four' firm for a full audit of USDT reserves

The audit aims to address long-standing questions over USDT reserves and push new disclosure standards.

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What to know:

• Tether has hired a Big Four accounting firm to conduct its first full financial statement audit of the reserves backing its $184 billion USDT stablecoin.
• The company, which has previously released only periodic attestations, said the audit will involve a detailed review of its assets, liabilities, controls and reporting systems.
• Tether did not name the firm but said it was chosen through a competitive process, amid longstanding criticism and scrutiny over whether USDT is fully backed one-to-one by liquid reserves.

Tether, the crypto company behind the most popular stablecoin USDT, said Tuesday it has selected a "Big Four" auditing firm to conduct its first full financial statement audit.

"The Big Four Firm was selected through a competitive process because the organisation is already operating at Big Four audit standard," said Simon McWilliams, Chief Financial Officer of Tether. "The audit will be delivered."

The company has long published periodic attestations of the assets backing the value of its $184 billion U.S. dollar stablecoin USDT. A full audit goes further: It requires a detailed review of assets, liabilities, controls and reporting systems.

Tether did not name the firm that will complete the audit. The Big Four term is used for top accounting firms Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC.

The move follows years of criticism over whether Tether has fully demonstrated that USDT is fully backed by reserves. The company says its holdings consist largely of U.S. Treasury bills, along with smaller allocations to gold, bitcoin and a range of loans. That mix has drawn scrutiny from critics who question the liquidity and risk profile of some assets, especially during periods of market stress.

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