Tether’s excess reserves nearly doubled to $7.95 billion as Q3 operating profit reached $1.5 billion

Tether said its third-quarter operating profit was $1.5 billion, while its reserve surplus climbed to $7.95 billion at the end of September, up from $4.1 billion in June. For PSPs and banks touching stablecoin flows, the useful part is not the headline profit — it is the size and composition of the backing behind USDT, still the largest stablecoin by a wide margin.

1. Tether held $191.5 billion in assets against $183.5 billion in liabilities at the end of September, leaving $7.95 billion in excess reserves. The company said this was nearly double the $4.1 billion it reported in June, according to figures released with its latest attestation prepared by independent accounting firm BDO.
2. Its assets included $132.4 billion in direct and indirect US Treasury bill holdings. Tether said that exposure is comparable to South Korea’s $134.2 billion in US government debt and exceeds the United Arab Emirates’ $116.1 billion, based on August data from the US Treasury Department.
3. The company said it generated $4.5 billion in net operating profit during the first nine months of 2026, with income largely driven by US Treasury bills and reverse repurchase agreements. Tether also said its Bitcoin reserves were valued at $8.37 billion, up from approximately $5.8 billion at the end of June.
4. USDT remains the world’s largest stablecoin, accounting for around 60% of the $297.3 billion stablecoin market, according to DefiLlama data. On Friday, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said on X that USDT’s user base had surpassed 700 million, with adoption concentrated in emerging markets.
5. The reserve disclosure comes after years of scrutiny over Tether’s transparency. In August, the company said it completed its first full independent financial statement audit by KPMG US, although the audited statements were not made public.

For high-risk payment flows, the operational point is straightforward: Tether is still sitting on a very large pile of short-duration US government paper, and USDT remains the stablecoin that most of the market routes through. That combination matters for settlement, treasury management, and counterparty risk conversations, whether you like stablecoins or just have to underwrite them.