Tether Is Trying to Be More Transparent. But Questions Linger
Yesterday, stablecoin issuer Tether released an attestation regarding its reserves—the amount of assets that “back” each coin. It‘s the first such attestation from Tether in years, and it hasn’t exactly reassured the skeptics. According to the document—which consists of Tethers own report, plus a statement from a small Cayman Islands accounting firm called Moore Cayman—as of February 28, Tether had around $35.3 billion in assets and $35.2 billion in liabilities. $35.1 billion of those liabilities “relate[d] to digital tokens issued,” which is to say they were backing the Tethers in circulation at that time. It‘s a gesture toward transparency from a company that’s faced intense scrutiny for its evasiveness in the past. The New York State Attorney General‘s office recently concluded its long-running probe into Tether’s operations and fined the company $18.5 million as part of a settlement agreement. The new document isn‘t nothing, but it doesn’t mean there arent any outstanding questions. Just February 28？ According to the attestation, Tether had $35.3 billion on February 28, supporting the $35 billion in Tether circulating at that time. But what about before the 28th？ As part of its investigation into Tether, the New York AG‘s office determined that a previous “transparency update” regarding Tether’s reserves was “misleading”—the note