By Elizabeth Howcroft and Samuel Indyk
LONDON (Reuters) – Tether, one of the world’s largest stablecoins by market value, said on Friday it had reserves worth $66.4 billion at the end of June, down from $82.4 billion at the end of March.
The reserves statement on Tether’s website comes a day after it said it had switched to accountancy firm BDO Italia to certify its reserves and that it would aim to release monthly reports by the end of the year.
Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency designed to keep constant value, such as a 1:1 U.S. dollar peg. They are widely used in cryptocurrency trading to move funds between different cryptocurrencies or into regular cash.
Financial regulators worldwide have warned that stablecoins could pose a risk to wider financial stability, with Britain among major economies looking to regulate the sector.
Tether says its coin maintains its value by holding dollar-denominated reserves to match or exceed the value of Tether coins in circulation.
Tether’s $66.4 billion reserve assets exceed its $66.2 billion liabilities, BDO Italia said in the statement.
Holdings of U.S. Treasury bills fell to $28.9 billion in the second quarter, the statement said, a $10.3 billion drop from the $39.2 billion it held in the first quarter.
Commercial paper and certificates of deposit were down to $8.4 billion, showing an $11.7 billion drop.
In July, Tether said that it had slashed its commercial paper holdings as part of a plan to reduce exposure to riskier assets.
Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino also said that the company will have cut its commercial paper holdings to $200 million by the end of August, and to zero by the end of October.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by Edmund Blair and Alexander Smith)
