Tether Excess reserves nearly doubled to $8 billion, with third-quarter profits reaching $1.5 billion

Stablecoin issuer Tether stated that as its excess reserves nearly doubled, the company's operating profit in the third quarter reached $1.5 billion. The aforementioned data is from its latest audit report, which was prepared by the independent accounting firm BDO and released alongside the report.

As of the end of September, Tether held assets amounting to $191.5 billion, with liabilities of $183.5 billion, resulting in a reserve surplus of $7.95 billion, which is nearly double the $4.1 billion reported at the end of June. Among its assets, there were $132.4 billion directly and indirectly held U.S. Treasury bonds.

According to data from the U.S. Treasury Department in August, this exposure is equivalent to the $134.2 billion of U.S. government debt held by South Korea and exceeds the $116.1 billion held by the United Arab Emirates.

Tether also indicates that the net operating profit for the first nine months of 2026 was 4.5 billion US dollars, with revenue mainly coming from US Treasury bills and reverse repurchase agreements. Its Bitcoin reserves were valued at 8.37 billion US dollars, which is higher than the approximately 5.8 billion US dollars at the end of June.

According to DefiLlama data, Tether's USDT remains the largest stablecoin in the world, accounting for about 60% of the $297.3 billion stablecoin market. On Friday, Tether's CEO, Paolo Ardoino, posted on the X platform that the number of USDT users has exceeded 700 million, with most of them being concentrated in emerging markets.

This stablecoin issuer has been under scrutiny for years due to issues with the transparency of its reserves. In August of this year, the company announced that it had completed its first comprehensive independent financial statement audit conducted by KPMG US, however, the audited financial statements have not been made public.