A reserve attestation is a report in which an independent CPA firm confirms that an issuer's statement about the reserves backing a stablecoin is fairly stated as of a specific date. It is the document treasury teams cite when they need outside assurance that the cash and Treasuries behind USDC, USDT, PYUSD, RLUSD, USDG, or USDP actually exist.
Attestations are not the same as audits, and the distinction matters when a procurement, risk, or compliance team asks where the dollars are. This article walks through what attestations cover, who signs them for each major stablecoin, how often they appear, and where the limits sit.
What is a reserve attestation?
A reserve attestation is a point-in-time examination engagement, performed by a licensed CPA firm under AICPA attestation standards, that reports on the issuer's assertion about reserve composition and total supply.
The CPA does not write the assertion. The issuer publishes a management statement, usually saying that as of a chosen reporting date the value of eligible reserve assets equals or exceeds the value of stablecoins in circulation. The CPA then performs procedures to confirm that statement and issues an opinion under AT-C 205 (examination) or AT-C 210 (review).
The result is a short report. It names the issuer, names the firm, lists the reserve assets and amounts at the snapshot date, compares them to tokens in circulation, and concludes whether the assertion is fairly stated in all material respects.
Attestation vs audit: what is the difference?
An attestation confirms a single management assertion at a point in time. An audit is an ongoing examination of an entire entity's financial statements, internal controls, and operations across a full reporting period.
The two engagements share a vocabulary but cover very different ground.
Scope. An attestation looks only at reserves on the reporting date. A financial statement audit looks at the issuer's full balance sheet, income statement, cash flows, and related controls across a fiscal year.
Standards. Attestations follow AICPA SSAEs (AT-C sections). Audits follow GAAS or PCAOB standards for public companies.
Time horizon. Attestations are snapshots. Audits cover a continuous period and assess whether figures are reliable over time.
Operational review. Audits test internal controls, segregation of duties, and going-concern assumptions. Attestations do not.
What gets signed. An audit produces a full audit opinion on financial statements. An attestation produces an examination report on a specific assertion.
Most stablecoin issuers publish monthly or quarterly attestations, plus a separate annual audit of the parent entity. Treasury teams that need both reserve confirmation and operational assurance read both documents.
Who attests each major stablecoin?
Each issuer engages a different CPA firm. The roster as of 2026 is stable, but firms rotate occasionally, so always verify on the issuer's transparency page before citing.
Stablecoin | Issuer | Attesting firm | Cadence | Scope |
USDC | Circle | Grant Thornton | Monthly | Reserve composition, total supply |
USDT | Tether | BDO Italia | Quarterly | Consolidated reserves report |
PYUSD | Paxos (for PayPal) | WithumSmith+Brown | Monthly | Reserve composition, total supply |
RLUSD | Ripple (Standard Custody) | Deloitte | Monthly | Reserve composition, total supply |
USDG | Paxos (Global Dollar Network) | Marcum | Monthly | Reserve composition, total supply |
USDP | Paxos | WithumSmith+Brown | Monthly | Reserve composition, total supply |
Circle moved USDC reporting to Grant Thornton in 2025, citing the firm's audit experience with public financial institutions. Tether's BDO Italia engagement has been in place since 2021. Paxos consolidates most of its attestation work with WithumSmith+Brown for PYUSD and USDP, but engaged Marcum specifically for the Global Dollar Network's USDG to keep the consortium reporting independent.
What is included in a reserve attestation?
A typical report lists the reserve assets by category, their fair market value at the snapshot, the total tokens in circulation, and the CPA's opinion that the two figures reconcile.
For a fiat-backed stablecoin, the asset categories usually break down as:
Cash held at insured depository institutions
Overnight reverse repurchase agreements collateralized by US Treasuries
Short-duration US Treasury bills (often the largest line)
Money market fund holdings (for issuers that use them)
Other approved instruments, listed by category and amount
The report shows token supply by blockchain, then aggregates to a single circulation figure. The CPA's opinion confirms that the fair value of the listed reserves is greater than or equal to that figure as of the reporting date and time.
Reports also disclose the standards applied (AT-C 205 examination, in most cases), the issuer's responsibility, the practitioner's responsibility, and any restrictions on the report's use.
How often are attestations published?
Monthly is the modal cadence among regulated US issuers. Tether is the notable quarterly exception.
Circle, Paxos, and Ripple publish monthly reports, typically released two to three weeks after month-end. Tether publishes quarterly consolidated reserves reports, with a separate breakdown of the reserve composition by asset type and counterparty.
Cadence is partly a regulatory artifact. New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) trust charter rules require Paxos and the Standard Custody entity behind RLUSD to publish monthly reports. EU MiCA rules tightened reporting expectations for euro-denominated stablecoins, and analogous US frameworks under discussion would likely formalize monthly cadence across the board.
What are the limitations of reserve attestations?
An attestation tells you about a single moment. It does not promise anything about the day before or the day after.
The most cited limitations:
Snapshot risk. Reserves on the reporting date may differ materially from reserves the rest of the month. CPA firms address this with surprise procedures, but the report itself only covers the named date.
No operational opinion. Attestations do not assess whether the issuer has adequate controls, succession plans, or operational resilience. That sits in the annual audit, when one exists.
No legal opinion. The CPA does not opine on whether token holders have a perfected legal claim to the reserves. That depends on the issuer's bankruptcy structure and trust framework.
Counterparty concentration. Reports list reserve categories but rarely name every counterparty. A bank failure that affects a large unnamed depository can still hit the reserve before the next report.
Scope of "reserves". Some issuers include corporate cash and intercompany balances in earlier reports. Modern reports separate token-backing reserves from other balances, but reading the footnotes is still worth the time.
Treasury teams that take attestations at face value miss these. Teams that read the footnotes, check cadence against the issuer's transparency page, and compare the snapshot date to the next maturity wall on the Treasury bill schedule get a much sharper picture.
Where can I find each issuer's attestation reports?
Every regulated issuer maintains a transparency page where reports are posted in PDF form, usually under a "Transparency" or "Reserves" header.
USDC: Circle's transparency page lists monthly Grant Thornton reports plus a live reserve dashboard.
USDT: Tether's transparency page hosts BDO quarterly consolidated reports.
PYUSD: Paxos publishes PYUSD reports on its PayPal stablecoin transparency page.
RLUSD: Ripple's stablecoin site hosts the Deloitte monthly reports for Standard Custody.
USDG: Global Dollar Network publishes Marcum reports on its dedicated transparency site.
USDP: Paxos hosts USDP reports on the same transparency page as PYUSD.
For procurement files, save the PDF rather than the URL. Issuers reorganize transparency pages routinely, and a saved report is the artifact that holds up in a vendor review.
Reserve attestation FAQs
Is a reserve attestation a guarantee that my stablecoins are safe?
No. It is independent confirmation that reserves existed at a moment in time. Safety depends on the legal structure, custody arrangements, regulator, and counterparty quality behind those reserves.
Why don't all stablecoins have full audits?
Annual audits at the parent entity exist for most regulated issuers. They are slower, more expensive, and reported once a year, which is why monthly attestations carry the day-to-day reporting load.
Do attestations cover yield-bearing stablecoins?
Some do. Yield-bearing tokens that pass through Treasury bill returns are usually attested on the same basis as the underlying reserves. Tokens that earn yield through lending or DeFi strategies sit outside the standard reserve attestation model and need a different review.
Related reading
Methodology and sources
Issuer roster compiled from each issuer's public transparency page as of May 2026: Circle (USDC), Tether (USDT), Paxos (PYUSD, USDP), Ripple and Standard Custody (RLUSD), Global Dollar Network (USDG). Attesting firm details cross-checked against the most recently published examination reports. Standards references taken from the AICPA SSAE 18 framework, specifically AT-C 205 and AT-C 210. Regulatory cadence references taken from NYDFS trust charter guidance and EU MiCA Title III provisions.