Reserve Watch

Explainer

How to read a reserve attestation

A stablecoin promises to be worth a dollar because something backs it. “Reserves” are the assets an issuer holds against the coins in circulation; an “attestation” is how outsiders get to check that claim. Understanding the difference between the two is most of what it takes to read this page well.

An attestation is an independent accountant’s point-in-time confirmation: on a stated date, the issuer held reserve assets at least equal to the value of the tokens outstanding. It is narrower than a full audit, which is a broader, standards-based examination of an entity’s financial statements over a period and ends in an audit opinion. Most stablecoin issuers publish attestations — monthly or quarterly — rather than continuous audits, so the useful habit is to open the report and see exactly what was tested, by whom, and as of when.

Three things separate strong reporting from weak. First, cadence: a monthly attestation is fresher than a quarterly one, and a long gap since the last report is worth noticing. Second, composition: cash and short-dated U.S. Treasuries are the most liquid, predictable backing; crypto collateral, hedged derivatives or tokenized assets can be sound but behave differently in a squeeze, which is why the reserve column above describes what each issuer holds rather than reducing it to one number. Third, the attestor: an independent, reputable accounting firm signing the report is the check that gives it weight.

On-chain issuers take a different route: their collateral lives in public smart contracts, so anyone can verify the backing live from the blockchain instead of waiting for a periodic report. That transparency is real, but the collateral is often crypto or tokenized assets rather than cash — a different risk profile, not automatically a safer one.

roo2ya shows you the live circulating supply and the shape of each programme — who attests, how often, what the reserves broadly consist of, and when the next report is due — and then sends you to the issuer’s own transparency page for the figures. We deliberately do not restate reserve dollar amounts or backing ratios here, because those change with every new report; the primary source is always the issuer’s to publish, and it is one click away in the table.