Stablecoin Reserves Leave Room for Improvement: Experts Highlight Verification Gaps

The stablecoin market has grown exponentially in recent years, but so have concerns about its resilience. A recent report by TRM Labs found that there were 207 hacking incidents and approximately $972 million in aggregate crypto losses across the first half of 2026.

Tether's Q2 2026 attestation showed that it had around $187.75 billion in total assets against $184.6 billion in outstanding USDT, a buffer of about $3.15 billion or 1.71%. Circle reported that 84% of its USDC reserves sat in the Circle Reserve Fund as of June 30, 2026, with the rest in bank cash.

To verify these numbers independently, a coding tutorial on shattered.io provides a script to check stablecoin backing using on-chain data. The script reads live token supply from the blockchain, pulls Chainlink's Proof-of-Reserve feed where one exists, cross-references the issuer's own published attestation, and wires it into an alert that fires when something looks off.

The goal of this tutorial is not to replace the accounting firm but to catch cases that attestations can't, such as a sudden supply spike that doesn't match any announced mint or a Proof-of-Reserve feed that's gone stale for days. By combining on-chain total supply, Chainlink's PoR feeds, and issuer attestation, users can have a more comprehensive understanding of stablecoin backing.