Viewpoint: Tether's and USDC's Reserve Structures More Resemble a Hedge Fund With High Risk

BlockBeats News, May 20th – Christoph Hock, Head of Digital Assets and Tokenization at Union Investment, a major German asset management company, stated at the London Digital Money Summit 2026 that USDT and USDC are not true "stablecoins" in the strict sense. He mentioned that their reserve structure is more akin to a high-risk hedge fund.

Hock pointed out that Tether's reserves hold a significant amount of gold and Bitcoin assets, making it not a purely USD-backed low-risk cash equivalent. He believes that this structure would transmit market volatility risk to corporate finance and institutional investors.

He specifically referenced a past 13% de-pegging event of USDC, stating that for corporate finance departments and asset management institutions relying on stablecoins for overnight cash settlement, such price fluctuations pose "catastrophic risks."

Hock stated that institutional investors cannot tolerate significant market value losses in their cash positions over a short period and criticized that some stablecoins have deviated from the original intention of being "fiat-anchored digital cash." Data shows that as of January 2026, Tether's gold reserves were about 148 tons, valued at around $23 billion, surpassing the gold reserves of some sovereign nations.

As European regulatory authorities continue to intensify their scrutiny of unauthorized stablecoins, the transparency of stablecoin reserves and liquidity risks are becoming core concerns for traditional financial institutions.