Are we back to the old FUD playbook. The United States federal government is investigating stablecoin issuer Tether, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported in an exclusive article on Friday.
It was reported that the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, is carrying out a criminal investigation of the use of Tether (USDT) by third parties to fund illicit activities or launder money generated by those activities. I don't know why this is making waves as that investigation has been going on for several years. Simultaneously, the Treasury Department is considering sanctioning Tether because of its widespread use by individuals and groups sanctioned by the US, including the terrorist group Hamas and Russian arms dealers. When you consider up to $190 billion in USDT is traded daily the percent that's used for illegal activity is likely less than that of US dollar (USD).
The fact that people are claiming Tether is somehow involved in aiding criminal actors or sidestepping sanctions is outrageous and wildly irresponsible. Tether has a well-documented and extensive dealings with law enforcement to crack down on bad actors seeking to misuse tether and other cryptocurrencies. I written on both the allegations and action of Tether in past. This seems like story written to just cause noise with broad strokes and information that's been public from sometime. I would expect more out of paper like WSJ...