KPMG Issues Clean Audit of Tether Gold, First Big Four Review for XAUT
KPMG issued an unqualified opinion on the 2025 financial statements of TG Commodities, the issuer of gold-backed token Tether Gold (XAUT), covering 520,089 troy ounces of gold. It is the second Big Four audit completed by Tether, following KPMG's review of USDT issuer Tether International in August.
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What the Audit Covered
KPMG issued an unqualified opinion on the 2025 financial statements of TG Commodities, S.A. de C.V., the company that issues XAUT, according to Tether's November 12 announcement. The opinion means the statements fairly present the issuer's financial position under the applicable accounting standards.
Tether reported that as of December 31, 2025, TG Commodities held 520,089.35 fine troy ounces of allocated gold, against 520,089.30 XAUT tokens in issue. Sources differ slightly on the gold's value: crypto.news put it at approximately $2.25 billion, while Decrypt cited $2.246 billion. The gold is stored in vaults in Switzerland, with each token representing an ownership interest in specific bars.
Physical Verification Versus Attestations
Tether said KPMG physically inspected and counted individual gold bars rather than relying only on custodian confirmations, checking identifying information against supporting records. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said KPMG "counted every single bar" as part of the review.
The audit differs in scope from the product-level reserve reports Tether has published since April 2025. Those reports, prepared by BDO, give independent assurance over reserves at a given date but are not full audits of annual financial statements. The most recent one, covering September 30, put reserves at 827,417.63 ounces, valued at $3.44 billion, with roughly 709,324 tokens sold and 118,094 still available for sale.
Context From Tether's Reporting History
XAUT launched in January 2020 but did not publish its first product-specific reserve attestation until April 2025, a gap that reflects longer-running criticism of Tether's disclosure practices. In October 2021, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission ordered Tether to pay $41 million over misleading statements about USDT being fully backed by U.S. dollars. The regulator found that fiat reserves covered circulating USDT on only 27.6% of days in a 26-month period between 2016 and 2018. That finding concerned USDT rather than XAUT.
KPMG completed its review of Tether International in August, issuing an unqualified opinion on 2025 accounts that reported reserves exceeding associated liabilities by $6.814 billion at year-end. Tether's latest quarterly USDT attestation, also prepared by BDO, showed $191.5 billion in reserve assets against $183.5 billion in liabilities, an excess of almost $8 billion as of September 30. The company said it earned $1.5 billion in net operating profit in the third quarter.
Outlook
Tether CFO Simon McWilliams said the company intends to extend its financial audit program across its businesses. Ardoino has also said XAUT is on track to become the first true competitor to gold ETFs, a claim that is a company statement and not an independent assessment. Separately, Tether holds its own gold reserves, stored in a former nuclear bunker in Switzerland, and Ardoino has said it will continue adding to them.
Why It Matters
For Traders
The audit confirms a physical gold count for XAUT's 520,089-ounce supply, though it covers year-end 2025 figures, so traders should weigh the more recent attestation data.
For Investors
A Big Four audit moves Tether's disclosure toward the standard expected of regulated financial issuers, a development that bears on how stablecoin reserve quality is assessed across the sector.
For Builders
Teams integrating XAUT as collateral can now reference audited 2025 statements from KPMG rather than relying solely on quarterly attestations for reserve verification.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice. Read the full disclaimer.
