Tether reports $1.5B Q3 profit as excess reserves rise to $7.95B
Tether's Q3 attestation shows $1.5B operating profit and a $7.95B reserve surplus, with Bitcoin's price rebound driving much of the increase.
Tether said it earned $1.5 billion in operating profit in the third quarter, and its reserve surplus grew to $7.95 billion. The figures come from the stablecoin issuer's latest attestation, prepared by accounting firm BDO and released Friday, October 30, according to Bitcoin.com News and Cointelegraph.
Year to date, Tether reports $4.5 billion in net operating profit for the first nine months of 2026. The company says income came largely from US Treasury bills and reverse repurchase agreements, as reported by Cointelegraph and The Defiant.
Balance sheet at the end of September
According to Cointelegraph, Tether held $191.5 billion in assets against $183.5 billion in liabilities on Sept. 30. That leaves the $7.95 billion surplus, up from $4.1 billion in June. Unchained puts the increase at about $3.85 billion and notes that nearly all liabilities are USDT tokens in circulation. Tether said USDT issuance has stayed near $184 billion this year.
Direct and indirect Treasury bill holdings totaled $132.4 billion. Cointelegraph compared that with South Korea's $134.2 billion in US government debt and the United Arab Emirates' $116.1 billion, using August US Treasury Department data. Tether's Bitcoin reserves were valued at $8.37 billion, up from about $5.8 billion at the end of June.
What drove the jump
Unchained reports that Tether did not explain the rise in its surplus. Its own reading of the company's three reserve reports this year points mainly to Bitcoin and gold prices. The BTC price used in Tether's valuation rose 42.6% over the quarter, from $58,642 to $83,621. Unchained calculates that this adds roughly $2.47 billion if Tether held about 98,900 BTC, as it did in June.
Unchained also says a 3.7% gain in gold, to $4,157.41 an ounce, adds about $700 million. The gold line implies Tether held roughly 3.4 fewer tonnes than in June, though the report does not say whether any gold was sold. These are Unchained's estimates, not figures from Tether.
Why it matters and what to watch
USDT accounts for about 60% of a $297.3 billion stablecoin market, according to DefiLlama data cited by Cointelegraph. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said in a post on X that USDT has passed 700 million users, mostly in emerging markets. For traders, the size of the surplus relative to liabilities is one measure of the buffer behind the largest dollar token.
The Defiant notes a limit on the BDO work. The attestation covers the report as of the end of September, not activity throughout the quarter. Because a large part of the buffer's recent growth appears tied to Bitcoin and gold valuations, the surplus could move with those prices, as it did in the second quarter, according to Unchained.
Cointelegraph adds that Tether has faced years of scrutiny over reserve transparency. In August it announced it had completed its first full independent audit, by KPMG US, but the audited statements were not made public. Whether those statements are released is something to watch, alongside Tether's next quarterly attestation.
Sources
- Tether Reports $1.5 Billion Q3 Operating Profit, $7.95 Billion Reserve Buffer The Defiant
- Tether’s excess reserves nearly double to $8B as Q3 profit hits $1.5B Cointelegraph
- Bitcoin’s Rebound Drove Most of Tether’s $3.8 Billion Reserve Recovery Unchained
- Tether Reports $1.5B Q3 Profit as Total Reserves Reach $191.5B Bitcoin.com News
Written with AI assistance from the sources above and checked against them. Not investment advice.