Tether Fires Back at S&P Downgrade, Citing Billions in Equity and Strong Revenue

• S&P Global downgraded Tether’s USDT to its lowest rating, 5, citing high exposure to riskier reserves and limited transparency/disclosure
• S&P expressed concern that the riskier assets and poor disclosure could weaken USDT’s ability to maintain its price peg under future market stress.
• Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino strongly disagreed with the downgrade, citing the firm’s Q3 2025 attestation showing $215 billion in total assets against $184.5 billion in liabilities, including $7 billion in excess equity.

Tether is once again battling “TetherFUD”, as it’s known in the community, and this time it has a heavy contender. 

Recently, S&P Global downgraded Tether from “4 (constrained)” to “5 (weak),” its lowest score, citing growing exposure to higher-risk assets in reserves and “persistent gaps in disclosure.” 

The agency flagged Bitcoin, gold, secured loans, corporate bonds and other investments as carrying credit, market, interest rate and FX risk, and stated that Tether provides “limited information” on custodians and counterparties to investors.

However, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, citing the issuer’s Q3 2025 attestation report, said the Tether Group held roughly US$215 billion (AU$328.95 billion) in total assets against about US$184.5 billion (AU$282.285 billion) in stablecoin liabilities. He said this included around US$7 billion (AU$10.71 billion) in excess equity and about US$23 billion (AU$35.19 billion) in retained earnings.

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Ardoino Fires Back at S&P

Ardoino didn’t stop there. He claimed S&P failed to account for this equity cushion and for roughly US$500 million (AU$765 million) in monthly profits generated mainly from US Treasury yields. Overall, Tether said it “strongly disagrees” with S&P’s characterisation.

Interestingly, though, S&P acknowledged USDT has shown “a notable level of price stability” through periods of crypto volatility, but said the combination of riskier reserve assets and limited transparency “weakens its confidence in the token’s ability to hold its peg under stress”.

Well, Tether countered that USDT has processed “billions in redemptions” during market shocks without losing its peg and described the stablecoin as “systemically important financial infrastructure” in some emerging markets, where it is used as a functional substitute for local currency.

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