Tether said on Friday 30 October 2026 that it earned about $1.5 billion of net operating profit in the third quarter and that its reserve buffer, the amount by which its assets exceed what it owes, stood at $7.95 billion on 30 September, up $3.8 billion from the end of June. The numbers come from the Tether Q3 2026 attestation, signed the same day in Milan by BDO Advisory Services, and from a company release that calls the buffer nearly doubled.
Most of that rise lines up with the prices of two assets. By our own arithmetic, the bitcoin and gold lines in Tether’s reserves grew by about $2.8 billion over the quarter, equal to roughly 73% of the rise in the buffer. Bitcoin in the report is valued at its 30 September price of $83,621; it traded about 8% lower, near $77,100, around 17:45 UTC on Friday.
Two limits apply to what follows. BDO’s report checks one moment and is not an audit. And Tether publishes no bridge from the old buffer to the new one, so the breakdown here is ours. None of this is a finding against Tether.
What Tether reported for the third quarter
The release puts net operating profit at $4.5 billion for the first nine months of 2026, with $1.5 billion in the third quarter, which Tether calls consistent with the quarter before. US Treasury bills and reverse repurchase agreements, short loans backed by government paper, provided most of that income. USDT issuance held at about $184 billion through the three quarters, in Tether’s words, and total reserve assets were $191.5 billion.
Paolo Ardoino, the chief executive, said in the release that the aim is “to make sure USD₮ remains dependable when people need it most”. The release gives no bitcoin or gold breakdown and does not mention secured loans. Those lines are in the 11-page report.
The buffer halved in the second quarter, which is why this report mattered
The June report, published on 31 July, showed the buffer at $4.11 billion, down from $8.23 billion in the March report. Tether still headlined about $1.5 billion of quarterly profit. The gold and bitcoin lines lost about $1.8 billion between those two reports, and the June report’s equity table implies a financial result of about minus $4.2 billion for the quarter, on our subtraction. The report did not break that down.
Three months later bitcoin had climbed from $58,642 to $83,621 and gold from $4,008 to $4,157 an ounce, the prices the two reports use. The buffer fell with those assets and came back with them, which is why what sits inside the rise matters as much as its size.
Where the extra $3.8 billion came from: our arithmetic
The calculation below is Coindaro’s, not Tether’s. It compares the June and September reports line by line, using exact figures, so some changes differ by $0.01 billion from the rounded columns.
| Item | 30 June 2026 | 30 September 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total assets | $187.75B | $191.45B | +$3.70B |
| Total liabilities | $183.64B | $183.50B | -$0.15B |
| Reserve buffer | $4.11B | $7.95B | +$3.85B |
| Bitcoin, value | $5.80B | $8.37B | +$2.57B |
| Gold, value | $18.84B | $19.08B | +$0.25B |
| US Treasury bills | $114.96B | $122.84B | +$7.88B |
Bitcoin grew $2.57 billion and gold $0.25 billion, which makes $2.81 billion. The buffer grew $3.85 billion, or $3.8 billion in Tether’s rounding. One divided by the other gives about 73%.
That is the cautious version, because quantities moved too. The September values and prices imply about 100,060 BTC and about 142.8 metric tons of gold, against about 98,930 BTC and 146.2 tons in June; Tether states neither count. Holding June quantities fixed and changing only the price gives about $3.2 billion, or roughly 83% of the rise. We use the lower figure here.
What backs USDT at 30 September, line by line
The report lists assets to the dollar. The percentages are ours.
| Asset | Amount | Share of assets |
|---|---|---|
| US Treasury bills (under 90 days on average) | $122.84B | 64.2% |
| Overnight reverse repos | $9.52B | 5.0% |
| Term reverse repos (under 90 days) | $7.18B | 3.7% |
| Non-US bills, cash and bank deposits | $0.04B | under 0.1% |
| Gold bars | $19.08B | 10.0% |
| Secured loans | $14.18B | 7.4% |
| Bitcoin | $8.37B | 4.4% |
| Other investments | $6.00B | 3.1% |
| Public equities | $4.18B | 2.2% |
| Corporate bonds | $0.06B | under 0.1% |
Cash, bills and repos add up to $139.58 billion, about 72.9% of the total. The other $51.9 billion is where the detail thins out. “Other investments” is a residual category, $6.0 billion of assets that fit nowhere else. Public equities carry indirect exposure to gold, bitcoin and other assets, without names. The $14.18 billion of secured loans is described as over-collateralised, with margin calls and liquidation mechanisms, but the report names neither borrowers nor collateral.
The buffer equals about 4.3% of liabilities. Gold plus bitcoin came to $27.45 billion, so a fall of about 29% in both, with nothing else moving, would equal the whole buffer. That is a sensitivity, not a forecast.
For readers new to the mechanics, a stablecoin holds its dollar value only as long as holders trust that it can be redeemed, and our page on Tether covers the company, its reserves and its freezes.
Tether Q3 2026 attestation: what BDO checked and what it did not
BDO Advisory Services S.r.l. of Milan concluded that the report is fairly presented, in all material respects, against criteria that include Tether management’s own accounting policies. It worked under an assurance standard, ISAE 3000 Revised, and gave what that standard calls reasonable assurance. The company reporting is Tether International, S.A. de C.V., based in El Salvador.
The checks were specific. BDO took confirmation letters from banks and depositaries, used a specialist’s inventory and quality tests on a sample of the gold, reconciled the books to the blockchains, and looked at the collateral on a sample of secured loans.
BDO also states the limits. The report covers one moment, 30 September 2026 at 23:59 UTC, and nothing before or after it. BDO gives no assurance on the going concern judgement, and the Notes at the end are outside its work. Asset values assume normal trading, so they do not reflect extraordinary markets or key custodians or counterparties short of liquidity. Management identified no provision for credit losses.
One civil case is disclosed, a New York class action over the fall in the bitcoin price in 2017 and 2018, with no provision because the outcome cannot yet be estimated. BDO did not modify its opinion on any of these points. In Tether’s own words the report “does not represent the financial statements” of the company.
The audit of 2025 moved the starting figure by $476 million
Tether does have an audit now, for 2025. It said on 13 August that KPMG US had issued an unqualified opinion on those accounts, and a KPMG spokesperson confirmed it to The Block. The Defiant reported that Tether has released neither the statements nor the opinion letter. The new report says the 2025 accounts were audited and approved by shareholders on 13 August, without naming the auditor. KPMG plays no part in the BDO report, and the audit does not cover 2026.
That audit changed the opening number. The March and June reports started the year at $6,338 million of equity. The September report starts at $6,814 million, a difference of $476 million that Tether does not state; we get it by comparing the reports. A footnote puts the change down mainly to the treatment of subsequent events and refined accounting policies, and says this report now follows the audited basis.
The June and March buffers have not been shown on that basis. Our reading is that $4.11 billion could look different if they were, so the $3.8 billion rise may not compare like with like, though Tether makes the comparison itself and has not said any earlier quarter would change.
$1.66 billion and $4.5 billion: two results for the same nine months
The September equity table starts at $6,814 million, adds a “financial result” of $1,660 million, subtracts net capital movements of $519 million and ends at $7,955 million. The release gives $4.5 billion of net operating profit for the same nine months.
The documents do not reconcile the two, and the release does not define net operating profit. They may well measure different things: the financial result may include swings in the value of gold and bitcoin that an operating figure leaves out, which would fit the second quarter, though neither document says so. Nothing here shows either number to be wrong.
The quarters leave one smaller gap. Taking $1.5 billion twice from $4.5 billion leaves about $1.5 billion for the first quarter, while Tether reported about $1.04 billion of “net profit” for that quarter, the same figure as the financial result in the March report. The labels differ and Tether has not explained the gap.
The bitcoin mark is already about 8% out of date
Bitcoin was near $77,100 around 17:45 UTC on 30 October, against the $83,621.23 Bloomberg close the report uses; our midday report covers the expiry and the selloff.
At that price, the implied 100,060 BTC would be worth about $7.7 billion, roughly $0.65 billion less than the reported $8.37 billion and about 8% of the buffer. It is an approximate figure at one price, on an implied coin count, and it takes no account of any buying or selling since. We did not check a timed gold price, so we give no equivalent for gold.
What it means for USDT holders, in the US and in Europe
At 30 September assets exceeded liabilities by $7.95 billion, and most of them were short-dated US government paper or repos. That is what the attested figures show for that date. The report cannot tell a holder what the mix looks like today, or how the assets would behave in the conditions the valuation note leaves out.
The size of the buffer also moves with bitcoin and gold more than the word “profit” suggests. How much outsiders can check is a wider question, which the Financial Stability Board raised with the G20 in October, in a report saying supervisors lean on private data.
In Europe the document changes nothing about access. USDT has no MiCA authorisation, and Coinbase was due to convert remaining balances of EEA retail customers on 30 October, as we reported on the shift to USDC. The report’s notes, which BDO did not review, say the issuer is authorised under El Salvador’s Digital Asset Issuance Law and registered with FinCEN as a money services business. An Italian attestor does not bring the report under Italian or EU supervision.
What to watch next
The next reserve report would show whether the buffer holds with bitcoin below its 30 September mark. The audited 2025 statements, should Tether publish them, would show how the $6,814 million was built. A definition of net operating profit would settle the question the current documents leave open.
We found no independent analyst reaction when this piece was written. CNH₮ redemptions end on 20 February 2027, according to the report’s notes.