Reserve Attestation

A reserve attestation is a report by an independent accounting firm stating that, at a specific moment, a stablecoin issuer held reserves matching or exceeding the tokens in circulation. Major fiat-backed issuers publish these regularly — often monthly — listing the size and composition of reserves, such as how much sits in short-term US Treasury bills versus cash deposits.

For example, Circle publishes attestations for USDC in which an accounting firm confirms the reported reserve figures as of a given date, alongside a breakdown of the assets backing the token. Tether publishes similar quarterly attestations for USDT. These reports are the main window ordinary holders have into whether a stablecoin is actually backed.

The key limitation, and a common misconception, is that an attestation is not an audit: it verifies stated balances at a snapshot in time under agreed procedures, rather than giving the deeper, ongoing opinion on financial controls and completeness that a full audit provides. An issuer could, in principle, hold the assets on the reporting date and take on risk between reports, and attestations say little about liabilities, counterparty exposure, or the legal claim holders actually have on the reserves. Attestations are therefore useful evidence, and modern regulation increasingly requires them, but they are a floor of transparency rather than proof of safety. Reading what assets back the token — and how quickly they could be sold in a redemption rush — matters as much as the headline number.