Tether, the issuer of the world's largest stablecoin, has engaged KPMG to conduct a full independent financial statement audit of USDT — a first in the company's decade-long history.

The announcement, made March 24, follows years of pressure on Tether to move beyond quarterly attestations. Tether also brought in PwC to help prepare its internal systems for the audit process, according to the Financial Times.

USDT currently has approximately $184 billion in circulation and is used by an estimated 550 million people globally. Tether claims to back it with roughly $192 billion in reserve assets, the majority held in U.S. Treasuries — but critics have long questioned whether those reserves are as liquid and segregated as claimed.

Why It Matters

A Big Four audit is a materially higher bar than the regular attestations Tether currently publishes. Attestations verify that specific balances exist at a point in time; a full audit examines internal controls, accounting policies, and financial reporting across the entire year.

The timing is deliberate: Tether plans to register USDT under the U.S. GENIUS Act, which imposes comprehensive audit requirements on foreign stablecoin issuers. KPMG's engagement is partly a prerequisite for that path.

The company was fined $41 million by the CFTC in 2021 over misleading statements about its reserves. Since then, it has gradually expanded its transparency — moving from quarterly BDO attestations to this full audit engagement.

If completed, it would represent one of the largest inaugural audits in financial history, given Tether's scale relative to traditional financial institutions.