Tether said it generated about $1.5 billion in net operating profit in the second quarter of 2026, but the extra reserves backing USDT fell sharply over the same period. According to a Friday attestation prepared by BDO, excess reserves stood at $4.11 billion at the end of June, down from $8.23 billion three months earlier.
The report still showed USDT as overcollateralized, with $187.75 billion in assets against $183.64 billion in liabilities on June 30. But the filing did not explain the decline in the surplus buffer or provide the same level of asset-by-asset detail that Tether disclosed in the prior quarter.
Reserve cushion shrank while liabilities stayed near flat
The June figures imply a noticeable change in Tether’s balance sheet over the quarter. At the end of March, the company reported $191.77 billion in assets. By June 30, that total had fallen to $187.75 billion, a drop of roughly $4 billion, while token liabilities changed little.
Based on those numbers, the reduction in excess reserves came even as Tether reported about $1.5 billion in quarterly operating profit. The source article notes that combining the earlier reserve level with the reported profit points to an implied gap of roughly $5.6 billion, though the attestation itself does not specify whether that came from unrealized losses, outflows, or another factor.
Q2 wording and disclosures changed from Q1
The latest report also differed in how it described earnings. Tether’s first-quarter release used the term net profit, while the second-quarter document referred to net operating profit. According to the source article, that measure excludes mark-to-market moves on assets such as gold and Bitcoin.
That distinction matters because Tether entered April with about $20 billion in gold and roughly $7 billion in Bitcoin, according to its earlier disclosure, and both assets saw significant price moves during the quarter. Friday’s attestation did not attach fresh dollar amounts to those holdings. Gold was described only as more than 146 tons, and US Treasury exposure was characterized as the majority of reserves without a figure comparable to the $141 billion in Treasury bills disclosed in May.
Questions remain over transparency
The source article argues that the main issue raised by the new attestation is disclosure rather than immediate solvency. USDT continued to hold its peg near $0.9986, and its market capitalization remained about $183.5 billion, keeping it in third place among crypto assets by market value.
Tether also said it added more than 30 million users during the quarter. That demand held up even after Revolut announced a USDT delisting in Europe this month. Still, the company no longer repeated a claim from the first-quarter release that its reserve buffer alone would rank as the third-largest stablecoin in circulation.
Audit process still underway
Tether announced on March 24 that it had engaged an auditor, and the Financial Times identified KPMG three days later. Four months later, Friday’s release said only that the process was continuing.
The March announcement had also said Tether keeps earnings rather than paying them out. If that policy remains unchanged, the source article says profit distributions would not account for the lower reserve cushion. For now, the company has only said that assets backing part of the reserves came under direct strain during the quarter, without quantifying the impact.
The next clearer explanation may depend on the full audit process. The source article says KPMG would be the first outside party positioned to clarify why Tether’s surplus fell to $4.11 billion, a level now below the $6.3 billion buffer the company reported at the end of 2025.
Source: beincrypto.com