| They seem to have caught up somewhat for the April report, but March was extremely delay. News article below. I’m not an expert, but I think an attestation just examines if a statement makes sense. My accountant did one for my revenues and the percent that were in USD. I sent them a spreadsheet with my revenues from various sources and calculations showing total USD. The accountant verified that my spreadsheet said what I said it said. However, they did not actually verify the info underying the spreadsheet beyond examining some screenshots of customer addresses I provided. They samples a handful at random. In USDC’s case, I think the auditor would look at a bank statement and say “the bank statement on May 31st indeed says Circle has $X” and Circle says this money is theirs for backing USDC. Stuff they wouldn’t verify: * Was the money there before that specific minute of the day? * Did it remain there after? * Was the money from deposits, or was it from a loan or some other source? (Bitfinex did this with a prior attestation, mixing up Bitfinex’s money and reserve funds) So most people would assume these attestations mean “At all times USDC had backing of basically all of their tokens by $ in a bank account, free and unencumberer” but the attestations don’t examine that claim at all. They examine a very specific moment in time, and don’t examine the source of the funds. In an audit you might actually examine the accounts at a time not chosen by Circle. https://news.bitcoin.com/usdc-attestations-run-late-raising-... |