On the 9th of July 2020 The New York Court approved an investigation by the state's attorney general to look into numerous businesses behind Tether (stablecoin). At the time of writing Tether is almost hitting a $23b Market Cap, an increase of around $18b USD since the beginning of 2020.
Let's dive into this case to see what's it all about. First of all, I'm not a buttcoiner by any means but I'm missing some nuance on this subreddit when Bitcoin and other coins are going up a lot.
Tether founder Brock Pierce launched Tether in 2014 so traders could quickly enter or leave a position without being subject to the volatility of the crypto market. The stablecoin was meant to be backed 1:1 by real USD, meaning the price of the coin would be relatively stable. Around November 2018 however, the rumours of Tether not being backed 1:1 reached the former state attorney general of New York, Letitia James. She initiated an investigation in Tether and Bitfinex, but the two companies filed an appeal resulting in the halt of the investigation.With the approval of the New York Court on the 9th of July 2020 the case finally resumed against Tether and Bitfinex.
What did the former state attorney general of New York find out?
At this time in crypto there weren't a lot of banks willing to work with Tether and Bitfinex. Bitfinex therefore used a Panama based payments processor called Crypto Capital Corp. Crypto Capital worked with organizations associated with financial crime, money laundering and securities fraud. Crypto Capital worked like this: Set up a shell company to get a bank account and use it until it gets shut down. Then find another. Bitfinex’s parent company iFinex, suddenly had a black hole in its finances: $850 million of its funds were held up at Crypto Capital. When the money dissapeared, the respondents (Tether, Bitfinex) allegedly hid the losses through numerous, yet unexplained, tricks which lead to the believe Tether was printing Tether without it being backed by USD.A lawsuit filed by the Attorney General’s office included chat logs about funds that Crypto Capital had lost; the logs were between a Bitfinex representative and a Crypto Capital representative.
What happens on Jan 15th?
Bitfinex and Tether have till the 15th of January to submit documents to the New York state attorney general about their financial relationship. The shortfall of $850m was allegedly printed by Tether and given to Bitfinex to cover up the losses Crypto Capital created. It is speculated Bitfinex and Tether can't submit any documents without revealing their cover-up. This will result in the conclusion that Tether isn't backed 1:1 by USD by a lot of investors and will results in more investigation by the attorney general. Tether is unaudited at the moment, meaning no one checked the bankroll of Tether if there really is $23b USD there.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/ksdfne/why_tether_might_tank_the_crypto_market_on_jan/
