Crypto’s Most Trusted Stablecoin Given Lowest Potential ‘Weak’ Ranking By Main TradFi Company

Tether’s USDT, the dominant dollar-pegged stablecoin with almost $185 billion in circulation, simply took a success from conventional finance ranking powerhouse S&P World, because it downgraded its evaluation of USDT’s potential to take care of its peg from 4 to five, which is the weakest rating on its related scale.

S&P initially rolled out its stablecoin ranking framework in 2023 to gauge dangers like liquidity, governance, and asset backing within the rising sector. In line with their current report on USDT, Tether’s reserves have shifted towards extra risky holdings over the previous yr. These perceived riskier belongings, akin to bitcoin, gold, secured loans, and company bonds, now make up 24% of the reserve combine, up from 17% in 2024.

One among S&P’s sharpest criticisms in its downgrade of USDT lies in its rising reliance on bitcoin specifically as a reserve asset, now comprising 5.6% of the backing, which is nicely above the three.9% reserve buffer Tether itself flagged in its newest quarterly report (PDF). In line with S&P, this publicity amplifies dangers tied to bitcoin’s infamous volatility.

S&P additionally sees critical points concerning transparency at Tether, because the stablecoin issuer’s attestations provide little greater than high-level snapshots, with zero granularity on who holds these belongings, how they’re custodied, or what counterparties lurk within the shadows.

That stated, Tether’s reserves nonetheless lean closely on short-term U.S. Treasuries and money equivalents, accounting for 75% of the reserves. Regardless of the alleged pink flags from S&P, USDT has held its $1 peg by way of a lot of crypto’s wild rides over time, notably dealing with billions in redemptions with out a hitch in the course of the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.

A Tether spokesperson informed Reuters the corporate “strongly disagrees” with S&P’s evaluation, which makes use of an outdated mannequin that ignores USDT’s monitor report and function as very important infrastructure in rising markets.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino went further on X, framing the downgrade as a badge of honor: Tether “wears S&P’s loathing with pleasure,” thriving as an “overcapitalized” outsider to a flawed legacy system. “The classical ranking fashions constructed for legacy monetary establishments, traditionally led non-public and institutional buyers to speculate their wealth into firms that regardless of being attributed funding grade rankings collapsed,” Ardoino added.

In another post, Ardoino pointed to Tether’s newest attestation announcement, the place the corporate additionally claimed an extra reserve buffer approaching $30 billion; nonetheless, this isn’t explicitly a part of USDT’s present reserves.

In one other publish, Ardoino referenced S&P’s failures in the course of the 2008 monetary disaster, which had been portrayed by a blind lady within the related movie The Massive Quick. S&P paid a $1.375 billion settlement in a associated case with the U.S. Division of Justice concerning allegations that the rankings company had defrauded buyers with its rankings of economic merchandise within the lead as much as the housing disaster. Notably, Bitcoin itself was initially launched in January 2009, nearly as a direct response to the collapse of belief concerned within the monetary disaster.

S&P be likehttps://t.co/gGBOPhrVFX

— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) November 27, 2025

Simply weeks earlier than scrutinizing Tether, S&P also slapped a speculative ‘B-‘ issuer credit rating on bitcoin treasury company Strategy, highlighting the agency’s $80 billion-plus bitcoin hoard as a vulnerability that would cripple debt funds amid market plunges. The company’s outlook stays steady for now, but it surely flags Technique’s unfavorable money movement and bitcoin focus as pink flags, very similar to the volatility dangers baked into USDT’s reserves.

Whereas S&P sees points with Tether and Technique utilizing bitcoin as a reserve asset, many different well-known establishments, akin to the Harvard University Endowment and the state of Texas, are shopping for the crypto asset to carry for the long run and discover it to be helpful as an apolitical, digital retailer of worth.

It must also be famous that S&P is basically targeted on stablecoin issuers’ potential to redeem tokens for {dollars} of their assessments, so an asset like USDT the place the issuer is working extra like a financial institution issuing its personal non-public forex doesn’t essentially match the mildew completely. In different phrases, USDT could also be seen negatively by many within the conventional monetary system as a result of it’s working on a brand new commonplace constructed on bitcoin moderately than the standard, dollar-based system.