Reserves attestation shows Tether cut commercial paper holdings

Tether has produced its latest attestation report, and it shows the stablecoin issuer has cut its reserve’s commercial paper and cash holdings while beefing up its holdings of money market funds and treasury bills. 

Attestations are verifications completed by outside accounting firms to confirm a company’s statements, in this case, Tether’s reserves report of its stablecoins. 

Accounting firm MHA Cayman found Tether’s reserves for its USDT stablecoin “exceeds the amount required to redeem the digital asset tokens issued.” The reporting date encompasses the end of September, when it last released a reserves attestation, to December 31. 

From September 21 to December 31, Tether reduced assets held in commercial paper by about 21%, from $30.5 billion to just over $24 billion. Nearly $13.4 billion will mature between 0 and 90 days – a departure from the previous attestations, which had most of its commercial paper and certificates of deposit maturing between 91 and 365 days. 

Within its commercial paper breakdown, Tether dropped its cash and bank deposits reserve allocation from $7 billion to $4 billion. It rebalanced to allocate more to money market funds, which grew from $1 billion to $3 billion. Treasury bills saw the most growth from the rebalancing, though, jumping from $19.4 billion to $34.5 billion.   

Tether is required to release quarterly attestations detailing its reserve breakdown as part of a settlement with the New York Attorney General. It began assurance reporting in March, making this the third attestation it has completed.