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KPMG U.S. has issued an unqualified audit opinion on the 2025 financial statements of TG Commodities, the entity that issues gold-backed token Tether Gold (XAUT), according to Decrypt. The opinion, announced by Tether on November 12, 2026, covers the year ended December 31, 2025 and confirms the tokens were fully backed by allocated physical gold.
An unqualified opinion, often called a clean opinion, means the auditor concluded the statements fairly present the company’s financial position without reservations. Tether said in its post announcing the result that XAU₀ became its second stablecoin to complete a full Big Four audit.
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Key facts
- At December 31, 2025, TG Commodities reported 520,089.300 XAUT tokens in issue against 520,089.350 fine troy ounces of allocated gold.
- The year-end bullion was valued at approximately $2.246 billion.
- Tether said KPMG physically counted and inspected every bar, checking existence and serial numbers on-site rather than relying only on custodian confirmations.
- The gold is held in Swiss vaults and meets London Good Delivery standards; each token represents an ownership interest in gold on specified bars.
- It follows KPMG’s clean opinion on USDT issuer Tether International, dated August 13, 2026, in what Tether called the largest inaugural audit in history.
What KPMG actually verified
According to Crypto Briefing, the bar-by-bar count is the substance of the result: rather than accepting reports from third-party custodians, KPMG inspected the individual bars supporting the token. Crypto Briefing also reported that the gold is held in certified Swiss vaults and valued at roughly $2.246 billion at year end.
Tether has for years relied on quarterly attestations, which offer a snapshot of reserves at a single point in time. A full audit examines the financial statements as a whole, a heavier exercise that carries more weight with institutional observers. Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino said KPMG counted every bar as part of the audit, and said he believes XAU₀ is on track to become the first genuine competitor to the gold ETF market.
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The audited figures are not today’s reserves
Both Crypto Briefing and Blockonomi note a timing caveat: the audited window closed at the end of 2025, when reserves stood at roughly half a million ounces. Blockonomi reported that a later BDO report recorded 827,417.630 fine troy ounces as of September 30, 2026, valued at $3.44 billion, with the same number of minted tokens. Tether reported reserve quantities rose 59% between the two dates, and Blockonomi said the Swiss inventory gained 766 large bars to reach 2,057 in that category. That September figure exceeds the more than 827,000 ounces cited by Crypto Briefing; the two outlets differ by a few hundredths of an ounce in how they round it, and Blockonomi gives the precise 827,417.630 figure.
BDO provided reasonable assurance on that September snapshot under ISAE 3000, a narrower exercise than KPMG’s annual financial-statement audit. Blockonomi reported that the September report counted 709,323.660 tokens sold and 118,093.970 available for sale, and that Tether separately reported a 73% rise in customer holdings through September 2026.
Why it matters
For holders of tokenized commodities, the central question is whether the metal is actually there. An on-site physical count by a Big Four firm is a stronger answer than a custodian confirmation, and it gives institutional allocators a document they can point to. Tether’s move from attestations toward full audits across its business has been a long-running demand from critics, and XAUT is now the second product to clear that bar.
The company still publishes quarterly attestations for USDT. Decrypt reported that its latest, prepared by BDO and covering the period to September 30, showed total reserve assets of $191.5 billion against $183.5 billion in liabilities, an excess buffer of almost $8 billion, and that Tether made $1.5 billion in net operating profit in the third quarter. Chief financial officer Simon McWilliams said the milestones advance progress toward audits across the whole of Tether.
Separately from the XAUT backing, Tether has built its own gold reserves, which Ardoino has said it will keep adding to and which are stored in a former nuclear bunker in Switzerland.
What to watch
The next full audit will be the test of the newer, larger reserve base: until it lands, holders tracking the growth beyond 520,089 ounces are relying on quarterly BDO Italia attestations. Tether has indicated it intends to extend audits to the rest of its business, so the timing of the next KPMG opinion is the milestone to follow.
Sources: Decrypt, Crypto Briefing, Blockonomi
