Tether nearly doubles its reserve cushion to $7.95 billion and books a $1.5 billion quarterly profit as it freezes about $1.57 billion tied to Binance

Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, said on Friday it earned $1.5 billion in net operating profit in the third quarter and $4.5 billion in the first nine months of the year. The figures come with a reserve report as of September 30, attested by the accounting firm BDO.

The headline number is the cushion. Tether reported total assets of about $191.45 billion against liabilities of about $183.50 billion, leaving excess reserves of about $7.95 billion. That is up from about $4.11 billion at the end of June, crypto.news reports, nearly double. Tether says it holds $132.4 billion of US Treasury bills directly and indirectly, and that USDT issuance held broadly steady at about $184 billion through the first three quarters.

"Our responsibility is to make sure USD₮ remains dependable when people need it most," chief executive Paolo Ardoino said in the release.

The report covers the period before the Binance theft. Since then Tether has frozen about $1.57 billion in USDT tied to the incident, Reuters reports. Binance counts the roughly $3 billion frozen by Tether and other partners separately from the $6.34 billion it has set aside to cover losses, The Block reports.