Tether, issuer of the USDT stablecoin, held $3.3 billion of reserve assets in excess to back the value of its stablecoins, the firm reported in its Q2 attestation on Monday.
Signed by accounting firm BDO Italy, the attestation disclosed about $72.5 billion of exposure to U.S. Treasuries, including direct T-bill investments, repurchase agreements and deposits in money market funds.
The company’s bitcoin (BTC) holdings as of June 30 increased in dollar value to $1.67 billion from $1.5 billion three months earlier, according to the filing, though the number of tokens held was not disclosed.
Tether said its operational profits exceeded $1 billion for the second quarter. In May, the firm reported $1.45 billion in “net profits” in Q1.
Tether is the issuer behind the $83 billion USDT, the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, and some smaller stablecoins. USDT is a key piece of the crypto ecosystem facilitating trading and asset transfers.
Issuing fiat-backed dollar-pegged stablecoins is a lucrative business due to rising U.S. government bond yields, the primary reserve asset for USDT. Tether’s reported profits are close those of asset management giant BlackRock – with more than $9 trillion in assets under management (AUM) – which booked operating income of just over $1.6 billion in Q2.
Tether, however, continues to receive a fair amount of scrutiny for its opaque reserve management and lack of independent audits – a deeper financial analysis than attestations.
