Tether FUD Finally Over Amid Recent Partnership With Top 5 Accounting Firm?

An independent review from global accounting giant BDO has reported that the stablecoin issuer’s total assets exceed its consolidated liabilities. Will the FUD finally go away or stick around independent of evidence?

Top Five Accounting Firm Gives Stamp of Approval

Tether has made available its latest quarterly assurance opinion completed by BDO, a top five-ranked global independent public accounting firm. The attestation reaffirms the accuracy of the firm’s reserves report, which breaks down the assets held by the group as of June 30, 2022.

As of that date, BDO confirmed a more than 58 percent decrease in Tether’s commercial paper holdings over the prior quarter, from US$20 billion to US$8.5 billion. During the same period, the company increased its holdings of cash and bank deposits by 32 percent.

The attestation revealed a continued reduction in commercial paper investments and is said to demonstrate that “the group’s consolidated assets consistently exceed its consolidated liabilities, despite market capitulation in Q2 2022, which led to cascading failures across the industry”.

Further, the note suggests that “emerging from this black swan event [market capitulation, kicked off by Luna], Tether demonstrated its resiliency and continued commitment to transparency, dependability and commitment to removing commercial papers from reserves”.

Management noted that as of June 30, total assets exceeded total liabilities, and highlighted a figure of US$66.2 billion in relation to digital tokens issued.

Paolo Ardoino, Tether CTO, said:

We are fully committed to maintaining our role as the leading stablecoin in the market. Our commitment to transparency and the community is a longstanding pillar in the underlying ethos of the company and aligns with our responsibility as a market leader. We have once again demonstrated that commitment by aligning with BDO, one of the world’s top accounting firms.

Paolo Ardoino, CTO, Tether

‘Tether Truthers’ Silenced

So-called “Tether Truthers” have long asserted that Tether is a fraud and that its collapse would result in the entire crypto market unravelling. To date, that has proven to be a belief lacking in credence, even more so after this latest attestation.

This news would have been poorly viewed by at least one hedge fund, which accumulated a massive short position betting on its its decline. It seems no matter the evidence provided, Tether FUD is one of those persistent issues that are hard to dispose of, once and for all.