stable coins
By James Thorp
1 / 15
What the BDO Attestation Actually Says. BDO is the firm handling Tether's attestations, and the word "attestation" matters here.
2 / 15
USDT's Role Across Crypto Markets. USDT is everywhere. Exchanges use it as a base trading pair.
3 / 15
Profitability and the Treasury Yield Play. The Treasury income angle is worth sitting with for a second.
4 / 15
Tether made $1.3 billion in net operating profit last quarter. That's the headline number from its latest BDO attestation, and it's hard to ignore.
5 / 15
The attestation also put Tether's excess reserves at $5.2 billion above the full backing of USDT.
6 / 15
Not bad for a company that spent years fighting off questions about whether USDT was actually backed at all.
7 / 15
That limitation is real. And Tether's critics have hammered on it for years. But for a lot of market participants, the attestations are probably better than nothing — they at…
8 / 15
The $5.2 billion excess is the part that tends to reassure institutions. It means USDT holders aren't just relying on a 1-to-1 peg — there's a buffer above that line.
9 / 15
USDT is everywhere. Exchanges use it as a base trading pair. DeFi protocols rely on it for liquidity.
10 / 15
Related: Tether Launches USDT0 on Stellar, Unlocking $180 Billion in Liquidity
11 / 15
If Tether wobbled, the ripple effects would hit crypto liquidity fast. Probably faster than most people realize.
12 / 15
And competition is getting more intense. Banks, fintech firms, and payment companies are all eyeing the digital dollar space. Some are building their own stablecoin products.
13 / 15
So far, the $5.2 billion cushion is Tether's clearest argument that it can handle whatever comes next.
14 / 15
The Treasury income angle is worth sitting with for a second. Tether earns yield on reserves that it has to hold regardless.
15 / 15
For context, that kind of profit from a stablecoin issuer would have seemed almost absurd five years ago, when rates were near zero.
The Currency Analytics
Want the full story?