Stablecoin Transparency Is Becoming a Competitive Advantage for Crypto Firms

For the last several years, stablecoin users have simply trusted the issuers to tell them what backs their tokens. But as stablecoins become more widely used, simply taking an issuer’s word for it is no longer enough.

This became particularly clear in August when Tether said KPMG US had completed the first full independent audit of its financial statements. According to Reuters, KPMG confirmed that it issued an unqualified opinion on Tether International’s 2025 financial statements under AICPA standards.

For Tether, that’s a significant change after years of relying on reserve attestations, and, more broadly, it shows how expectations around disclosure are changing. For businesses deciding whether to work with a stablecoin, the quality and independence of the information regarding that stablecoin is now becoming a matter of financial security and compliance.

An Audit Tells You More Than an Attestation

Tether had previously published attestations from BDO Italia covering the size of its reserves, whereas the KPMG work examined its financial statements more broadly. Tether then said the audit went beyond its reserve figures, examining its transactions, systems and the evidence supporting its financial statements. Its chief financial officer also said the audited 2025 statements showed reserves exceeding liabilities by $6.8 billion. KPMG confirmed issuing its opinion, although the audited statements themselves were not made public.

The thing to remember here is that, even when an independent audit is able to provide a different level of scrutiny from periodic attestations, users still depend on the information ultimately made available to them. So rather than simply asking whether an issuer publishes reserve figures, businesses should be looking at who examined them and what the review covered.

The Blockchain Can't Show You Everything

Crypto already provides a degree of visibility that would be unusual in traditional financial infrastructure. Depending on the network, you can follow token issuance, transfers between known wallets and settlement activity as they happen.

A trader, exchange operations team or developer using a blockchain explorer or crypto trading platform can therefore see a considerable amount of activity without waiting for a company report.

But there’s a limit to how much information you can see. Although a blockchain can show that tokens moved from one wallet to another, it can’t independently tell you whether the issuer has sufficient off-chain assets to meet redemptions or who legally owns those assets. It also tells you very little about the issuer’s internal financial controls.

For stablecoins backed by conventional financial assets, an explorer will only tell you part of what you need to know. You also have to have credible information about what’s happening off-chain.

Better Disclosure Can Make Integration Easier

Once a stablecoin is being considered for everyday business use, you’ll need to understand the benefits and risks involved. And before an exchange lists an asset or a treasury team approves it for settlement, someone has to decide whether the risks are understood well enough to proceed.

Clear reserve information and independently reviewed financial statements can give everybody involved something concrete to work with. Poor disclosure, on the other hand, can mean requesting more documentation or investigating vague claims before an asset can be approved. There’s a practical advantage here that can get lost in the wider debate about crypto transparency. If an issuer makes important information straightforward to find and verify, it also makes life easier for businesses considering its asset.

Regulation Is Raising Expectations

Regulators are changing what the market considers normal, too. In Europe, MiCA has brought reserve management and disclosure into a formal regulatory framework, alongside the requirements covering custody and redemption for stablecoin issuers operating within its scope. Of course, that doesn’t make every token equally safe, and an audit doesn’t automatically remove the financial risks associated with an issuer. But what regulation can do is move disclosure away from voluntary claims and towards more consistent requirements.

As these requirements are becoming more common, businesses will naturally start expecting the same level of information elsewhere. Detailed reporting that once stood out can gradually become something counterparties expect before doing business.

Transparency Is Becoming Part of the Product

Transparency is where the whole argument moves beyond just regulation. If you’re responsible for approving a stablecoin for payments or treasury use, knowing that it holds its peg isn’t the end of the conversation. You’ll also want to understand how redemptions work and whether independent scrutiny backs up what the issuer says about its finances.

A company considering an integration needs to know that the token works technically, but its finance and compliance teams also need enough information to understand its history, and to some extent, the technology behind it. That gives issuers a commercial reason to improve disclosure even where regulation doesn’t explicitly require every detail. And making information easier to verify can reduce uncertainty for businesses deciding whether to support an asset.

Trust Has to Be Verifiable

Tether’s move from quarterly reserve attestations to a full financial statement audit illustrates how expectations around stablecoin disclosure are evolving.

It doesn’t settle every question, of course, especially since the audit itself wasn’t made public, and no single report can eliminate financial or counterparty risk. Still, expectations have clearly changed. Simply saying that a token is “fully backed” carries far less weight when businesses can ask for independent evidence of that statement.

Crypto firms now have to treat transparency as a need and not an optional compliance exercise, and issuers that make their finances easier to examine may also make their stablecoins easier for other businesses to work with.