Morning Minute: Tether Finally Gets An Audit

Tether said Thursday that Big Four accounting firm KPMG issued an unqualified opinion (the best possible result) on its 2025 financial statements.

Tether (the company behind the leading stablecoin USDT) called it the “largest inaugural financial audit in history,” and said KPMG examined its assets, liabilities, income, cash flows, internal systems, records, counterparties, and supporting documentation, even physically counting and inspecting every individual gold bar Tether holds rather than trusting custodian reports.

Tether has spent years fending off questions about whether USDT is truly backed. For most of its history, it published quarterly attestations (a lighter review), rather than submitting to a full audit, which critics treated as a red flag. And the skepticism wasn’t unfounded: Tether paid an $18.5 million settlement to New York in 2021 over misrepresenting its reserves, and the CFTC fined it $41 million the same year for claiming USDT was fully backed by dollars when it wasn’t at all times. A clean opinion from a Big Four firm is the milestone the company has long promised and never delivered, until now.

CEO Paolo Ardoino, unsurprisingly, took a victory lap, framing it as proof against “several years of detractors’ false claims, competitors’ lies, political attacks and misinformed coverage,” and arguing Tether’s governance has matured alongside its balance sheet.

The audit comes as Tether is pushing aggressively into the US market, launching a domestic stablecoin and courting regulators under the new GENIUS Act framework. A clean audit will help open even more doors in this new world. And that’s probably bad news for their competition. Circle built its whole pitch on being the transparent, regulated alternative to Tether - and that’s no longer the case. Tether is an absolute behemoth, reporting $1.5 billion in Q2 profit and holding more US Treasuries than most countries. And now people can actually trust the books…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are slightly red; BTC -1% at $62.8k; ETH -0.5% at $1,876; SOL -0.8% at $75.50; HYPE -2% at $56.40
• Top alt movers include ethFi (+14%), ATOM (+10%) and CRO (+3%)
• Oil +0.5% at $81.5; Gold -0.5% at $4,400
• Stock futures are mixed after the S&P hit another new ATH; DOW -0.1%, Nasdaq +0.2%
• The SEC postponed its planned open meeting on crypto rulemaking due to a scheduling conflict
• Trezor customer data was exposed in a shipping-partner breach, after a hack leaked the names, phone numbers, email addresses, and home addresses of thousands of the hardware-wallet maker’s customers
• Kalshi is in talks with Sequoia and Wellington for a $750 million raise at a $40 billion valuation, confirming the blockbuster prediction-market round as the platform's revenue doubles to a $4 billion run rate
• The White House is expected to host a gathering for crypto and prediction-market officials next Wednesday, per Politico
• Figure's revenue doubled as its blockchain loan marketplace surged, with the tokenization lender posting $226 million in quarterly revenue (up 113%) and $87 million in net income as consumer-loan volume jumped 132% to $4.3 billion
• Gemini reported a $107.7 million Q2 net loss, its fourth consecutive loss, as platform assets dropped 54% to $8.4 billion despite 37% revenue growth, while it leans on prediction markets and stock trading to diversify

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were mostly red; DOGE -2%, SHIB -1, PEPE -3%, PENGU -3%, TRUMP -1%, BONK even
• Robinhood chain was led by Sleuth (+300%), Robbie (+49x), Stackers (+300%) and AI (+40%); Cashcat fell 10% to $135M
• Solana leaders included Cate (+14%), momota (+40%) and neet (+14%); Ansem at $190M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were flat; Punks even at 31.7 ETH, BAYC even at 8.17 ETH, Pudgy even at 3.92 ETH; Stonkbrokers +16% to 11.6 ETH
• New project Stackers saw 250 ETH volume and ran to a 0.3 ETH floor
• Fuego (+100%) and Frens (+100%) led top movers