The Dance of Ants

Directory

Tether (USDT)

https://tether.to

Owned by iFinex Inc. that also owns the exchange Bitfinex. Its official company is Tether Ltd.

Bitfinex’ed Medium Blog

Bitfinex'ed Twitter Account [Nitter]

Chief strategy officer of Tether, Phil Potter, initially lied about being associated with Bitfinex, saying that they were completely segregated entities. [1]

There is a rich history of skirting the line of legality when it comes to reporting their numbers. After losing its banks across Taiwan and its United States correspondent bank Wells Fargo, Tether managed to schedule a 3rd party attestation with Friedman LLC. the day after they find a new bank. Tether had no significant bank relationship in its name from at least March 2017 until September 15, 2017. [2][3][4][5]

However, Tether did not open an account at Noble Bank, or any other bank, until September 15, 2017. Tether deposited the vast majority of its cash holdings (ostensibly backing USDT) into a trust account at the Bank of Montreal in the name of its General Counsel. The Bank of Montreal account never had more than $61.5 million dollars on deposit.
[3, page 3, paragraph 17]

Tether paid $18.5 million as they had attempted to cover up a total of $850 million going missing. This caused Tether's reserves to be drained by $700 million. [6][7][8][9]

After the court order against the state of New York, Tether went on to petition for certain of its documents to remain hidden after they were divulged to government officials. This raised an eyebrow for those at CoinDesk, who, understandably, wanted to find out what their reserves were comprised of. [10][11][12][13][14][15]

Tether stopped their 3rd-party audit on the reserves of their Tether Tokens because "[...] given the excruciatingly detailed procedures Friedman [LLP] was undertaking for the relatively simple balance sheet of Tether [...]". [16]

It is important to note however that Friedman LLP was later sued by the United States of American federal government for $1.5 million because of alleged "serial violations of the federal securities laws" and "improper professional conduct". [17]

One of Tether's original co-founders was Brock Pierce, who earlier fled to Spain with indicted child sex predator Marc Collins-Rector. Collins-Rector would later plead guilty to his allegations and registered as a sex offender, so him turning out to be the person Pierce fled with, it caused a mass of resignations in the Bitcoin Foundation when he became the new director.[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]

Tether seems to be dangerously associated with Bitcoin which allows for it to manipulate its price.[26][27]

Christopher Harborne is yet another prominent member of Tether that had later invested about 12% into the parent company of the exchange due to his thorough use of it. He is a prominent Brexit supporter and has made the largest United Kingdom political donation in history to Boris Johnson. Clearly, he has no interest in supporting people besides himself and perhaps who else may be rich as the people he invested in sought after ruining their nation in the pursuit of less oversight from the European Union. [28]

In communications with customers, the companies took steps to urge them to keep the details of new banking arrangements to themselves. “Divulging this information could damage not just yourself and Bitfinex, but the entire digital token ecosystem,” a client page on the Bitfinex website read.
[29]

  1. [1] Exposing Tether - Bitcoin's Biggest Secret (Jun 15, 2021) [YouTube, CoffeeZilla] Invidious Link
  2. [2] Memorandum Regarding Consulting Services Performed (Sep 28, 2017) (Attestation on Sep 15) [Archive of Tether's website @ Archive.org, PDF]
  3. [3] Investigation by LETITIA JAMES, Attorney General of the State of New York, of iFINEX INC. (etc.) (Feb 17, 2021) [USA Government site, PDF]
  4. [4] Analysis of the Tether/Bitfinex NYAG Settlement (Feb 23, 2021) [Blog, Bennett Tomlin]
  5. [5] A History of Tether and Bitfinex’s Audits, Attestations, Memos, and Letters: Both Promised and Actual (Jul 17, 2021) [Blog, Bennett Tomlin]
  6. [6] Bitfinex Covered $850 Million Loss Using Tether Funds, NY Prosecutors Allege (Apr 25, 2019) [News, CoinDesk]
  7. [7] Attorney General James Announces Court Order Against “Crypto” Currency Company Under Investigation For Fraud (Apr 25, 2019) [USA Government site, press release]
  8. [8] Bitfinex, Tether owner pays $18.5 million fine to settle NYAG cryptocurrency cover-up charges (Feb 23, 2021) [News, Reuters]
  9. [9] Tether Is Hiding Something... (Sep 5, 2021) [YouTube, CoffeeZilla]
  10. [10] iFINEX INC. et al v. STATE OF NEW YORK et al [USA Government site, court filings registry]
  11. [11] NY AG’s $850M Probe of Bitfinex, Tether Ends in an $18.5M Settlement (Feb 23, 2021) [News, CoinDesk]
  12. [12] Tether Asks Court to Block NYAG From Releasing Documents to CoinDesk (Aug 31, 2021) [News, CoinDesk]
  13. [13] CoinDesk Joins Court Case Seeking Access to NYAG Tether Documents (Jan 4, 2022) [News, CoinDesk]
  14. [14] Tether Responds to CoinDesk’s Intervention in Legal Proceedings (Feb 4, 2022) [News, CoinDesk]
  15. [15] Tether's Attempt to Block CoinDesk's Request for Stablecoin Reserve Records Dismissed by New York Court (Feb 10, 2023) [News, CoinDesk]
  16. [16] Tether Confirms Its Relationship With Auditor Has 'Dissolved' (Jan 27, 2018) [News, CoinDesk]
  17. [17] Tether's Former Auditor Fined $1M by SEC for Sloppy Accounting (Sep 26, 2022) [News, CoinDesk]
  18. [18] Bitcoin Foundation hit by resignations over new director (May 16, 2014) [News, Reuters]
  19. [19] Dollar-Backed Digital Currency Aims to Fix Bitcoin's Volatility Dilemma (Jul 8, 2014) [News, The Wall Street Journal]
  20. [20] Singer Lawsuit Is Tied To Marc Collins-Rector, Infamous Child Abuser Of The Dot-Com Boom (Apr 18, 2014) [News, Insider]
  21. [21] A high-flying Web start-up, DEN imploded among allegations of drug use, guns, and pedophilia (Nov 5, 2007) [News, Archive of RadarOnline @ Archive.org, Fast Company]
  22. [22] Found: The Elusive Man At The Heart Of The Hollywood Sex Abuse Scandal (June 26, 2014) [News, BuzzFeed News]
  23. [23] Mystery Man At Center Of Alleged Hollywood Sex Ring Has Vanished (Apr 24, 2014) [News, BuzzFeed News]
  24. [24] Elijah Wood Denies Personal Knowledge of Child Sex Abuse in Hollywood (Exclusive) (May 23, 2016) [News, The Hollywood Reporter]
  25. [25] Ex-DEN executive admits transporting minors for sex (Jun 14, 2004) [News, Associated Press]
  26. [26] Tether Manipulation Pushed Up Bitcoin's Price, Researchers Find (Jun 13, 2018) [News, CoinDesk]
  27. [27] Is Bitcoin Really Un-Tethered? (Posted: Jun 25, 2019) (Last revision: Nov 5, 2019) [Academic paper, John M. Griffin, Amin Shams]
  28. [28] The Unusual Crew Behind Tether, Crypto’s Pre-Eminent Stablecoin (Feb 2, 2023) [News, The Wall Street Journal]
  29. [29] Crypto Companies Behind Tether Used Falsified Documents and Shell Companies to Get Bank Accounts (Mar 3, 2023) [News, The Wall Street Journal]