Reserves, depegs and freezes

Every large issuer publishes a report on its reserve. Before you read the numbers, read the label.

An attestation is an accounting firm checking that figures the issuer supplied were true at one moment, usually midnight at the end of a month or quarter. An audit is the firm examining a company’s full accounts over a period and giving its own opinion on them.

An attestation tells you the dollars were there on the date. It doesn’t tell you where they were the day before, or what the company owes elsewhere.

Circle says “a Big Four accounting firm provides monthly third-party assurance” that USDC’s reserve covers the tokens, under “attestation standards set out by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA),” and it posts the reserve’s holdings weekly. Tether publishes a quarterly attestation prepared by BDO, which it calls “a top-five global independent accounting firm.”

Both are attestations. Tether now has an audit as well: on 13 August 2026 it said KPMG had given its 2025 accounts an unqualified opinion, the cleanest kind, though it announced that without publishing the statements. Circle’s parent, a listed company, publishes audited annual accounts.

No report of either kind is deposit insurance, and nobody stands behind the issuer if the report turns out to be wrong.