Tether Accused of Fudging Financials to Hide $3.2 Billion Loss

Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer, has been accused of manipulating its financial reports to hide a significant loss in the second quarter. The company claimed a $1.5 billion 'net operating profit' in Q2, but a closer look at the numbers reveals that this is largely due to accounting tricks.

The Q2 report shows Tether's reserve assets worth $187.75 billion, which is a $4.1 billion surplus over the value of issued USDT tokens as of June 30. However, the 'change in net equity' figure shows a loss of nearly $3.2 billion in Q2.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino celebrated the company's new profit metric, which eliminates unrealized gains/losses on volatile reserve assets. He tweeted about the 'great second quarter' figures and the user base hitting an all-time high of 650M+ across emerging markets.