Tether on Friday announced its results for the second quarter of 2026, reporting $1.5 billion in net operating profits. Company CEO Paolo Ardoino called it a “great second quarter” while acknowledging high volatility in global markets between April and June this year. Despite Ardoino’s reassurance, the stablecoin giant alarmingly logged a 50 percent drop in excess reserves.
Tether said it earned the majority of its profit by collecting interest on Treasuries — short-term U.S. government debt and repos — low-risk lending agreements, backing its stablecoin reserves.
Tether’s result showed that its buffer reserves fell from $8.23 billion to around $4.11 billion between the first and second quarters of this year. The company mentioned in its announcement that a sharp market volatility was the reason behind this drop.
As part of its balance sheet, Tether holds non-yield non-fiat assets like over 146 tons of physical gold and tens of thousands of Bitcoins. These assets are intended to serve as long-term macro hedges but their paper valuations are prone to market changes.
Between April and June this year, the global markets witnessed turbulence amid the Israel-Iran disputes and U.S.-China tech tensions among others. This lead to fluctuations in the prices of commodities like gold.
The unrealized losses on non-fiat reserve assets squeezed Tether’s equity cushion, depreciating its volatile holdings and subsequently cutting the excess reserve valuation roughly in half.
According to the company, “Tether’s reserves exceeded its liabilities by approximately $4.11 billion, demonstrating the resilience of the Company’s reserve structure through sharp market volatility.” It also added that it “reduced its secured lending exposure by approximately $2.38 billion (15 percent).”
Source: Tether
Meanwhile, Tether reported a minor increase in the issuance of the USDT tokens in the second quarter of this year. It said around the end of the second quarter, tokens worth $446 million were minted more compared to the first quarter of this year.
The stablecoin company emphasized that this issuance increase was logged despite a drop in the broader crypto market cap, which as pf press time, stands at $2.17 trillion according to CoinMarketCap.
Among Tether’s highlighted growth metrics, it also noted that Tether commanded 77 percent of micro stablecoin holders with lesser than $1,000 in holdings in Q2 2026.
The company has been laying major focus on its international expansion. Its gold-backed XAUT stablecoin, for instance, recently got its Shariah certification opening it for institutional investors in Islamic nations.
