Tether is a $65 billion time bomb waiting to explode

Tether has a shady history. CoffeZilla did a good summary of it here: https://youtu.be/-whuXHSL1Pg

Tether’s whole spiel is that it’s a stablecoin that’s backed 1-1 to the US dollar. In theory, you could ask to exchange all your Tethers for US dollars and they should be able to provide that.

The only problem is Tether has never had a full audit. They almost did complete an audit from Friedman LLP in 2018 but fired the auditor because he was “excruciatingly detailed”. More on that here: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2018/01/27/tether-confirms-its-relationship-with-auditor-has-dissolved/?outputType=amp

Every now and then, when Tether is bombarded with questions about its reserves, it will release an attestation but an attestation is nowhere near as detailed or critical as an audit.

Last year Tether was barred from operating in New York following a $18.5 million settlement with NY AG alleging it had been involved in a $850 million coverup with shadow bank Crypto Capital in 2017. More on this here: https://blockworks.co/news/tether-pushes-back-timeline-on-audit-report

The owners of Tether also owned Bitfinex, the once very popular crypto exchange. The execs who owned the Tether coin and also owned the crypto exchange would swap money between these two places to put up a front for the public that the reserves were there. From Bitfinex to Crypto Capital, there’s so many shady dealings it’s actually surprising how Tether is still keep the scheme alive.

Be careful out there.