Tether’s USA₮ stablecoin held above $175 million in circulation at the end of July 2026, according to a reserve attestation published by Anchorage Digital Bank on August 31. The report, prepared under AICPA standards, put the exact redeemable token supply at 175,245,527 and total allocated reserve assets at $175,906,606. That produced a net surplus of $661,079, the highest recorded for the digital asset and about 5% above June’s roughly $628,000.
The backing composition was heavily concentrated in short-term, low-risk instruments. About 90% of reserves, or $158.4 million, was held in reverse repurchase agreements collateralized by U.S. Treasury securities, while the remaining $17.5 million sat in cash at the federally regulated custodian. Anchorage noted that all assets were unencumbered and held in segregated trust accounts for token holders. Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s CEO, said the operational focus was providing dollar-rail infrastructure for payments and settlements in regulated financial applications. Bo Hines, CEO of Tether USA₮, emphasized that federal banking oversight aims to align token issuance with U.S. corporate standards.
The asset’s supply has expanded roughly tenfold during the first seven months of 2026, climbing from 17,501,391 tokens at the end of January to more than 175 million by June. That level remained intact through July, and the next attestation for August is scheduled for late September.
Against that backdrop, a broader look at stablecoin economics shows why issuers are increasingly focused on reserve yields. With aggregate stablecoin capitalization above $200 billion, USDT and USDC dominate liquidity. Issuers do not primarily earn from transaction fees or exchange spreads; they invest customer fiat in short-term Treasury bills, government money market funds and reverse repos. For example, an issuer holding $100 billion in reserves at a 3.5% annual yield would generate about $3.5 billion in annual revenue regardless of crypto market volatility.
That model is highly sensitive to Federal Reserve policy. In the 2026 rate environment of 3.50%–3.75%, reserve yields have contracted from the 5% levels seen during the 2022–2024 hiking cycle. Still, Circle reported second-quarter 2026 reserve income of $668 million and total revenue of $701 million, supported by USDC circulation growth to $73.3 billion, up 19% year over year. Tether recorded net operating profit of $1.5 billion in the same quarter, up nearly 50% quarter over quarter, as USDT circulation exceeded $184 billion.
Balance-sheet structures differ. Tether’s reserve surplus peaked at an all-time high of $8.23 billion at the end of Q1 2026, then fell to $4.11 billion by Q2 because of unrealized losses on bitcoin and gold holdings. Circle’s reserves are more concentrated in cash and cash equivalents, giving a lower risk profile. Ripple’s RLUSD, by contrast, restricts reserves to maximum-liquidity assets such as Treasury bills maturing in three months or less, government money market funds and reverse repos. As of August 2026, RLUSD held $1.98 billion in reserves against $1.87 billion in circulation, a surplus of about $110 million that prioritizes redemption capacity over additional yield.
The analysis also distinguishes payment stablecoins from yield-bearing tokenized money market funds such as sUSDS. Payment stablecoins preserve a fixed $1 redemption value and prioritize liquidity, while tokenized funds pass variable yield to holders. This distinction has strategic implications: stablecoin issuers remain structurally dependent on the Federal Reserve’s rate path, and near-zero rates would compress reserve income dramatically. That is why Circle has developed the Arc layer-2 chain, Tether has expanded into bitcoin mining, AI and energy markets, and distribution models such as Open USD are shifting reserve yield toward partners rather than issuers.
