According to a report by CoinDesk, approximately $91.3 billion in USDT on the TRON network is managed by a contract that can be compromised through the breach of two key signatures, as assessed by Hacken.
Experts noted that nearly half of the stablecoin's market supply is tied to a contract that lacks built-in delays, cancellation windows, or reliable rollback mechanisms.
This issue does not pertain to individual wallets; rather, it involves the administrative multisig that governs the USDT contract itself. Through this contract, tokens can be issued, addresses can be frozen, and contract ownership can be reassigned.
Seher Saylik, a smart contract auditor at Hacken, stated that if an attacker compromises the two keys, they could change the ownership to an address they control, effectively denying Tether access to management functions. In such a scenario, the attacker would also gain the ability to mint new USDT, halt or resume transactions, impose fees, and alter other administrative settings.
Hacken emphasized that there are currently no signs of key compromise or any incidents having occurred. The firm also noted that Tether employs the same six keys across Ethereum, Avalanche, and Celo, meaning that a breach in one network's infrastructure could potentially affect the stablecoin's deployments in others.
Additionally, the auditors pointed out that the USDT smart contracts lack automated checks for reserves and limits on issuance: if signatories approve a transaction, the contract can create any amount of tokens without on-chain verification of a corresponding bank deposit.
In light of these findings, Bluechip has upgraded Tether's corporate rating from D to C. This decision was based on an audit by KPMG US, which revealed that Tether International's reserves as of December 31, 2025, exceeded liabilities by $6.8 billion. This evaluation is the first under the SMIDGE methodology, which integrates analysis of reserves, corporate governance, and technical risks with input from Hacken. The cybersecurity score for USDT was rated 3.3 out of 10.
Hacken has not yet completed a comparable evaluation for USDC, so experts do not consider Bluechip's B+ rating for this stablecoin as a direct technical comparison with USDT.
Source: CoinGecko.It is worth noting that the Bank for International Settlements believes that stablecoins do not provide essential monetary properties and are not a reliable means of payment on a broad economic scale.