BlockBeats News, November 30th, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino responded to "Concerns About Tether FUD" in a post, stating, "According to the latest announcement (Q3 2025): Tether will continue to maintain a buffer of several billion dollars in excess reserves, with the overall group's equity approaching $30 billion. As of the end of Q3 2025, Tether had approximately $7 billion in excess equity (on top of approximately $184.5 billion in stablecoin reserves) and approximately $23 billion in retained earnings, as part of Tether Group's equity."
Tether Group's total assets are approximately $215 billion, with stablecoin liabilities of around $184.5 billion. Standard & Poor's made the same mistake in its analysis: it did not consider additional group equity, nor did it consider the approximately $500 million in monthly base profit that can be generated from U.S. Treasury yields alone."
Prior to this, Standard & Poor's Global Ratings downgraded the stability rating of Tether's USDT from "Restricted" to "Weak," and warned that a drop in Bitcoin's price could lead to undercollateralization risk for the stablecoin. Standard & Poor's stated that the assessment "reflects the increase in high-risk asset exposure in USDT reserves over the past year," including assets such as Bitcoin, gold, secured loans, and corporate bonds, while also taking into account the limited disclosure of information.
In addition, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes wrote in a post that the Tether team is in the early stages of a large-scale carry trade. My interpretation of the Tether reserve audit report is that they believe the Fed will cut rates, which would severely impact their interest income. In response, Tether is buying gold and BTC, and if the "gold + BTC position" drops by approximately 30%, it will wipe out their equity capital, and then USDT would theoretically become insolvent.
