BlockBeats News, August 15th, Tether stablecoin issuer CEO Paolo Ardoino responded to external scrutiny regarding the company's first full financial audit, stating that some critics could not accept their previous misjudgment of Tether and claiming that the company has proven its reliability multiple times.

Ardoino, in an interview with The Block, said: "To be honest, I don't care." He pointed out that Tether USDT had previously undergone a large-scale redemption stress test. In 2022, Tether completed approximately $7 billion in redemptions within 48 hours, accounting for about 10% of the reserve at the time, and did not suspend redemption services.

He stated that many traditional financial institutions might struggle to process equivalent fund outflows in such a short period. Even though some people see Tether as a "villain," the company will continue to serve its claimed 650 million users who rely on USDT, especially in emerging markets.

Previously, Tether announced that the US arm of KPMG issued a "clean opinion" on Tether International, S.A. de C.V.'s 2025 financial statements. However, some questioned whether this audit covered Tether's overall group financials and why the company did not disclose the full audit report.

In response, sources familiar with the matter stated that as Tether is a private company, it will not disclose audited financial statements but will provide relevant documents as required by regulatory bodies and banks. Tether stated that Tether International is the sole entity issuing USDT.

The audit results showed that as of December 31, 2025, Tether's reserve assets exceeded liabilities by $6.8 billion. Ardoino stated that Tether will conduct a full financial audit annually in the future while continuing to release quarterly reserve attestations.

Regarding the reasons for not completing a comprehensive audit in previous years, Ardoino said the issue was not the complexity of the balance sheet but rather the previously hostile US regulatory environment towards the crypto industry, which deterred major accounting firms from working with crypto companies.

Additionally, Ardoino revealed that Tether is still focused on the AI field and plans to support projects using advanced AI models to find vulnerabilities in Bitcoin's open-source software. He believes that software vulnerabilities are currently more likely to pose a real threat to Bitcoin than quantum computing.