Stablecoin Issuer Tether Responds to Accusations of Having Insufficient USDT Reserves

The issuer of stablecoin Tether (USDT) is denying a report that appeared in the Wall Street Journal claiming that the dollar-pegged crypto asset is insufficiently backed.

While branding the report as a “series of unsubstantiated conclusions,” Tether says that among the assets backing USDT are US treasury bills (T-Bills), which are considered a “premier safe asset worldwide.”

“The assumption that three months’ worth of T-Bills is an unsafe asset completely contradicts the longstanding fact that US Treasuries have been the premier safe asset worldwide for the past several decades.”

While accusing the Wall Street Journal of biased coverage, the USDT issuer says that it applies the same margin of reserves as other prominent stablecoins.

“To attack Tether’s reserves, when this margin also applies to other stablecoins on the market, further highlights an agenda by the publication to single out Tether and hurt its reputation.”

Tether says that even though it has not conducted an audit, it has maintained honesty and transparency in its disclosures.

“Tether’s disclosures have been the most honest and transparent in the market – everyone knows that we have not had an audit and they know we are working towards one…

While it is true that the international accounting standard setters have not yet issued a recognized standard for digital assets accounting (including stablecoins), nor defined as this shall be considered in terms of regulatory capital requirements of regulated entities (which apply fractional reserves) and audits and attestations framework are the same applied to any industry/business, we very much welcome these developments.

Until then, Tether will continue to provide full transparency.”

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