audit

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has now made the United States the core of its expansion plans and has gained support from allies of the Trump administration, including Commerce Secretary and long-time Tether supporter banker Howard Lutnick, whose family company has also invested in Tether.Tether launched a new token in the U.S. market this year and has strengthened its lobbying efforts in Washington. At the same time, Tether is attracting investors globally, attempting to establish a company valuation of $500 billion, making it one of the highest-valued private companies in the world.Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that the company plans to complete a full audit by the end of 2026 and is currently in communication with the Big Four accounting firms. Tether disclosed that its profits exceeded $10 billion last year and currently holds about $122 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds, making it the 17th largest holder of U.S. Treasuries globally.Additionally, Tether is promoting its compliant token USAT in the U.S. market and has made over 140 investments in areas such as artificial intelligence, energy, and brain-computer interfaces.

According to Bitcoin News, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has introduced a new form for cryptocurrency audits, requiring taxpayers to report the complete history of the trading platforms and wallets they have used.The form lists over 100 platforms, including Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, FTX, and Mt. Gox, as well as self-custody wallets like MetaMask, Ledger, and Trezor. Taxpayers must indicate "yes" or "no" for each platform and sign to confirm that the information provided is true and accurate; otherwise, they may face perjury penalties.The form is designed to map the complete cryptocurrency footprint of taxpayers across exchanges and wallets, potentially tracing back several years. Tax professionals warn that this document could pose significant legal risks and advise consulting a crypto tax attorney before signing. Failing to disclose platforms used years ago may raise questions, while disclosing too much could also lead to new investigative leads.

According to Bitcoin News, the IRS has introduced a new form for cryptocurrency audits, listing over 100 platforms, including exchanges like Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, FTX, and Mt. Gox, as well as self-custody wallets like MetaMask, Ledger, and Trezor. Those being audited must mark "yes/no" for each and sign under the penalty of perjury, with records potentially dating back several years.Tax professionals warn that failing to report historical platforms could trigger further scrutiny, while excessive disclosure may open new lines of investigation. It is advised to consult a crypto tax attorney before signing. The audit focus typically targets three groups: those who marked "yes" in the digital asset section of Form 1040 but reported very few activities, those whose 1099-DA earnings do not match their tax returns, and high-frequency traders during the bull market from 2017 to 2021.

Aave Labs announced the security framework for Aave V4, proposing a "security-first" development model that embeds security verification during the architectural design phase, rather than only conducting a final audit before launch.This security plan has been ongoing for about a year, with approximately 345 days of security reviews completed, funded by a $1.5 million security budget approved by the Aave DAO. It is reported that the V4 security process combines multiple auditing methods, including formal verification, manual audits, invariant testing, fuzzing, and public security competitions. Future protocol development will continue to adopt five long-term security measures, including introducing formal verification early in development, implementing multi-layer security auditing methods, continuous validation mechanisms, a long-term bug bounty program, and utilizing AI-assisted smart contract security scanning.

According to official news, Aave Labs has released the complete transparency report of the Aave V4 security program, including methods, processes, and results, endorsed by several security agencies such as Trail of Bits, Blackthorn, and Certora.Through manual audits, formal verification, invariant testing, fuzz testing, and public security competitions, approximately 345 days of security reviews have been conducted. The program is supported by a dedicated security budget of $1.5 million approved by the DAO.Aave Labs announced that it will continue five core commitments from the Aave V4 security program: embedding formal verification in the early development stages to ensure that architectural design is guided by secure methodologies rather than just verification; adopting a layered security approach, including manual reviews, formal verification, invariant testing, AI-assisted checks, fuzz testing, and public security competitions to cover more potential vulnerabilities; maintaining continuous security coverage, with formal verification frameworks and invariant testing suites running continuously alongside protocol iterations; establishing a long-term bug bounty program to leverage a broader security community for ongoing monitoring; and optimizing AI scanning capabilities to continuously enhance the level of intelligent security detection in future versions based on existing testing experiences.

Binance Wallet core developer Jackson ll posted that the MPC wallet related to AI Agent, DeFi wealth management, and other features has entered the security audit phase, "It must be reminded that caution is key, safety first."Yesterday, news broke that Binance Wallet announced the first batch of 7 AI Agent Skills, focusing mainly on market data analysis, risk assessment, and trade execution, aiming to provide a standardized Binance-level intelligence interface for AI agents.

The Aave community governance conflict has escalated again. The Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) and its founder Marc Zeller released an "audit" report targeting Aave Labs on the eve of a vote for a $51 million proposal known as "the largest funding request in Aave's history," sparking widespread discussion.ACI stated on social media that before the "$51M Aave Will Win" proposal enters Snapshot voting, the community should examine Aave Labs' past performance and its cumulative use of approximately $86 million in funds. Zeller mentioned that ACI has already released its own transparency report and evaluated Aave Labs using the framework of "what was delivered, how much it cost, and what the returns were." The report pointed out that Aave Labs has a cumulative "total capitalization" of about $86 million, which includes: $16.2 million from the 2017 ICO financing, $32.5 million from VC funding rounds, $31.93 million from direct DAO grants, and approximately $5.5 million categorized as "unapproved" swap fees.Zeller also noted that the founding team once held 23% of the initial supply of LEND (which later migrated to AAVE), but the current AAVE holdings have not been publicly disclosed. The report questions why Aave Labs has not released an "accountability report" that includes cost-output ratios, financial disclosures, and wallet transparency, arguing that information disclosure remains insufficient in the context of receiving large amounts of funding over the long term.

Global leading full-stack Web3 security company ExVul has established a long-term strategic partnership with high-performance financial public chain Pharos, jointly setting up a $1.25 million security audit Grants to support the development of early startup teams within the Pharos ecosystem.The Grants are aimed at early projects in the Pharos incubator, providing complete security audit services for core smart contracts and key system modules, along with funding and ongoing security advisory support. The collaboration between Pharos and ExVul fully reflects a high level of trust in their professional capabilities and highlights the close binding of both parties in the long-term construction of the ecosystem. Through this cooperation, ExVul will build a sustainable, secure, and compliant infrastructure for Pharos's early projects, solidifying the foundation for the ecosystem's long-term development.

Upbit released the "Digital Asset and Deposit Audit Report" audited by Sunghyun Accounting Firm, which disclosed that Upbit holds approximately 103.19% of the digital assets it intends to pay to customers, and the deposit audit results show that Upbit holds 105.72% of the funds available for customer payments.

According to Cryptonews citing the Financial Times, the cryptocurrency company ALT5 Sigma, linked to Trump, is facing scrutiny due to its unlicensed auditor. State government documents show that the company's license expired in August and has not been renewed as of the end of December, making it unable to conduct audit work under Texas regulations.The company stated that its auditor is undergoing a mandatory peer review supervised by the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy, which is expected to be completed by the end of January.The report also noted that since the beginning of 2025, the company's stock price has dropped over 77%, reflecting growing investor unease as the company struggles to meet disclosure requirements. The company is currently at risk of being delisted from Nasdaq due to its failure to timely submit its quarterly report for the period ending in September.

The Lighter team announces that its perpetual and spot trading zk circuits have completed auditing and are officially open-sourced. The team has released the complete verification code, allowing external independent verification of every order, cancellation, and settlement operation of Lighter L2 on Ethereum to ensure their authenticity and validity.Developers can generate ZkLighterVerifier using build scripts from GitHub and perform consistency checks with the deployed contracts on Ethereum.

The cryptocurrency exchange Upbit has announced that it will conduct a digital asset/deposit audit and server maintenance, and will suspend services on January 1, 2026:Server maintenance time: January 1, 2026 (Thursday) 02:00 - 08:00Korean won deposit and withdrawal suspension time: January 1, 2026 (Thursday) 02:00 - 08:00Digital asset deposit and withdrawal service suspension time: December 31, 2025 (Wednesday) 20:00 to January 1, 2026 (Thursday) 08:00

According to Sky News, London-listed private equity firm Bridgepoint has announced the acquisition of a majority stake in digital asset auditing and technology service provider ht.digital for approximately £200 million.HT has over 700 clients, including major global cryptocurrency exchanges, asset management companies, and banks, benefiting from the rising institutional demand for cryptocurrency asset allocation.

The lending platform Lendep announced that it has passed the Certik audit. In addition, the total amount of loans and deposits on the platform has exceeded 1.5 million USD.Lendep stated that it will continue to strengthen smart contract security, fund risk control, and transparency mechanisms. In the future, it will launch more asset markets and incentive mechanisms to provide global users with more efficient and robust decentralized lending services.

According to Cointelegraph, Bitcoin Core has passed its first third-party security audit, confirming that the software securing the Bitcoin network is highly mature, with no serious vulnerabilities found.The audit was conducted by the French security company Quarkslab, commissioned by the Open Source Technology Improvement Fund (OSTIF) and implemented on behalf of the Bitcoin Core development funding organization Brink. During the 104-day audit period from May to September, the reviewers assessed the most sensitive components of the project, with particular attention to the P2P layer and block validation logic. The report noted that despite the large size of the Bitcoin Core codebase, which contains over 200,000 lines of C++ code and more than 1,200 deployed test cases, the auditors assessed it as "the most mature and well-tested." The team found no high or medium severity vulnerabilities, only two low severity issues, along with a series of recommendations for improvements mainly related to fuzz testing tools and test coverage. These findings did not impact the consensus mechanism, denial-of-service resistance, or transaction validation.