30s Summary

Tether’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, has revealed the assets, including $100 billion in US treasury bonds, 82,000 Bitcoins and 48 tons of gold, behind the USDT cryptocurrency at a Switzerland event, following suspicions of a US investigation into the company. Ardoino dismisses claims that Tether is not abiding by anti-money laundering and US sanction regulations, stating Tether is not under investigation. The CEO supports law enforcement to prevent USDT misuse by criminals, helping in recovering approximately $109 million from criminals since 2014. Ardoino expressed concerns about the US’s lagging crypto regulations and hopes for improvement following the 2024 US Presidential election.

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The CEO of Tether, Paolo Ardoino, gave a talk at an event in Switzerland, where he offered some insight into the company’s assets that back the Tether-USD cryptocurrency, USDT. This comes after some people claimed that the US Department of Justice and the Treasury were breathing down Tether’s neck.

Ardoino mentioned that Tether owns around $100 Billion in US treasury bonds, more than 82,000 Bitcoin (which, at today’s rates are worth about $5.5 billion) and a whopping 48 tons of gold.

All this came up because recently a Wall Street Journal article got crypto folks all jittery. The article suggested that US officials were checking out Tether for supposedly not playing by the rules when it comes to money laundering and US sanctions.

After the article was published on October 25, Ardoino wasn’t having any of it. He kept tweeting about it, saying, “As we told the WSJ, there’s no sign that Tether is being investigated. WSJ is just stirring up old drama.”

He went on to talk about how Tether has helped law enforcement catch bad guys and recover stolen digital assets. “We’re always talking with and helping law enforcement to make sure scammers, criminals and scary groups can’t misuse USDT. If we were being investigated, we would know, and we can safely say that the stuff in the article just isn’t true”.

According to Tether, they’ve helped law enforcement get back roughly $109 million from crooks and hackers since 2014.

He’s also been outspoken about how he thinks the US is a bit behind when it comes to making laws about cryptocurrencies. He thinks a lot of awesome digital companies are moving away from the US because they find better rules elsewhere. But he’s got hope that this will change after the 2024 US Presidential election.

This October, Tether’s USDT reached a monster $120 billion market value. Many investors see this as a super positive thing for cryptocurrencies, and predict that prices will continue to go up in the next few months.

Source: Cointelegraph