Tether Holdings, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin Tether (USDT), has announced its intention to provide real-time updates of its reserve data. Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s chief technical officer and upcoming CEO, revealed that the company aims to begin publishing reserve data in real time by 2024, according to a recent report by Bloomberg. However, Tether clarified that there is no set deadline for achieving this goal. Currently, Tether publishes and updates its reserve data at least once per day, as stated on its transparency page. The company also releases monthly reserve reports and conducts quarterly reserve reviews.
Enhancing Transparency and Addressing Concerns
The move towards real-time reporting of reserve data is intended to enhance transparency and address concerns regarding the backing of Tether’s stablecoin. Despite some downturns in the broader cryptocurrency market in 2023, Tether has continued to gain momentum. Tether’s Q2 update revealed that the company’s assets increased by 5.7% to reach $86.5 billion. Additionally, Tether reported over $1 billion in operational profit, marking a significant 30% increase from the previous quarter. The company has also observed a surge in stablecoin lending throughout 2023, indicating a growing demand for Tether’s stablecoin and its utility as a lending instrument within the crypto market.
Increased Reserves and Exposure
In its Q2 attestation conducted by accounting firm BDO, Tether disclosed an increase of $850 million in excess reserves, bringing the total to $3.3 billion. The company also revealed approximately $72 billion in indirect exposure to United States Treasuries, held by money market funds, as well as U.S. Treasuries collateralizing its overnight repo.
Back in August, PayPal announced its plans to roll out its PYUSD stablecoin soon. The dollar-pegged asset is issued by Paxos, a blockchain infrastructure firm that previously issued Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin. While Tether currently dominates the stablecoin market as the largest and most liquid of the dollar-pegged tokens, followed by Circle’s USD Coin (USDC), some believe that PayPal has the potential to disrupt the stablecoin leaderboard with its massive user base of 420 million users globally.
William Quigley, one of the co-founders of Tether, however, expresses skepticism about PayPal’s ability to achieve significant adoption, particularly outside the United States. In a recent interview with Cryptonews.com, Quigley stated, “It is highly unlikely that PayPal will play a dominant role in the stablecoin market, certainly not outside of the US.”
