Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino outlines AI expansion plans after KPMG audit

KPMG accountants recently had to physically count and verify over 146 metric tons of gold bars stashed in a Swiss vault. The exercise was part of the first full independent audit of Tether International’s financial statements, and the results are exactly what the company’s critics didn’t expect: an unqualified opinion confirming that everything checks out. The audit, completed by KPMG US, found that Tether’s reserves exceeded its liabilities by $6.814 billion as of December 31, 2025. That’s a cushion sitting behind a stablecoin with roughly $183 billion in circulating USDT supply. The audit that crypto kept demanding Previous attestations from BDO, while helpful, never carried the weight of a full audit from a Big Four firm. BDO’s most recent attestation, covering the period through June 30, 2026, reported a $4.11 billion reserve buffer. The KPMG audit goes significantly further, applying the kind of rigorous, comprehensive examination that institutional finance demands. CEO Paolo Ardoino called the completion of the KPMG audit a “defining moment” for Tether. No stablecoin issuer of Tether’s scale has previously submitted to, and passed, a full independent audit from a globally rec...