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Tether CEO Says An Audit By A Big Four Giant Is Our Top Priority – Crypto News

Published

1 year ago

April 19, 2024

Dripp

While Tether has been making solid progress with its USDT stablecoin capturing a huge market share, there have been several questions regarding its treasury reserves. Over the last week itself, Tether has flushed the market with an additional $2 billion in USDT coins. Amid the rising demand for the auditing of its reserves, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has shown openness to auditing by a Big Four firm.

Tether Audit By A Big Four Remains “Top Priority”

According to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, the major accounting firms, including Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG, are hesitant to engage with Tether due to concerns about potential reputational damage.

Ardoino stated, “None of the Big Four firms are willing to audit us.” However, he emphasized that securing one of them as Tether’s auditor is a high priority for the company.

Currently, with a market cap of over $109.5 billion, Tether’s USDT is the third-largest cryptocurrency currently in the market. Thus, an audit of all the USDT reserves would bring more confidence among investors about the stablecoin issuer. This is especially true when recent reports suggest that Tether is the most-used stablecoin for criminal activity.

Tether has emerged as a crucial component of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, facilitating seamless transitions between fiat currencies and digital assets.

USDT, Tether’s stablecoin, dominates trading pairs across major cryptocurrency exchanges, serving as the preferred choice for trading against popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.

Given its widespread usage, ensuring Tether’s USDT is adequately backed by reserves is paramount. However, challenges arise in securing top-tier accounting firms as clients, with factors such as the FTX incident, security breaches, and regulatory pressures in the crypto industry complicating the process.

US Congress Against Crypto

Ardoino questioned the rationale behind a Big Four auditing firm jeopardizing its extensive clientele in the banking sector for the sake of auditing a few stablecoins. He added that stablecoins firms like Tether are not as lucrative as the traditional banking giants, for the Big Four to audit.

However, he expressed his willingness to upgrade from the quarterly attestations prepared by a firm called BDO Italia. “We are trying to make the case,” he said. “We’re trying to build relationships to get the audit from a Big Four firm”.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a prominent Democratic lawmaker from Massachusetts and vocal critic of the cryptocurrency space, condemned what she referred to as ‘sham audits’ conducted on crypto firms. “You can see how certain parts of the US Congress is against crypto,” said the Tether CEO in an interview with DLNews.