Tether's third-quarter report is out, and the numbers look pretty strong: net operating profit of $1.5 billion in Q3, totaling $4.5 billion for the first nine months; excess reserves nearly doubled from $4.1 billion at the end of June to $7.95 billion, with total assets of $191.5 billion against liabilities of $183.5 billion. But don't rush to applaud—the profit was basically flat compared with the previous quarter, and most of the roughly $3.8 billion surge in the reserve buffer was driven by mark-to-market gains in Bitcoin and gold: Bitcoin reserves were estimated to have risen from about $5.8 billion to $8.37 billion, U.S. Treasury holdings totaled $132.4 billion, including direct and indirect holdings, and gold holdings were worth $19.1 billion. More importantly, this BDO attestation is a snapshot as of September 30, before the Binance hack. Judge for yourself what it says—and doesn't say—about today's books. A stablecoin's credibility has never been about how good its income statement looks, but whether it can redeem in full during an extreme event.#稳定币 #Tether