Tether is a type of cryptocurrency known as a “stablecoin.” That means, in theory, that anyone buying Tether is promised Tether holds an equal amount of U.S. currency to back up your crypto purchases. There’s just one problem with that: no one has seen any proof that Tether actually holds anywhere close to sufficient currency to back up the billions in stablecoins traded. All Tether has offered is an unverified “attestation” that it does hold the currency it says it does. Not surprisingly, regulators did not accept this barebones statement, and the CFTC issued a $41 million fine against the company in October 2021, finding that “Tether misrepresented to customers and the market that Tether maintained sufficient U.S. dollar reserves to back every USDT in circulation with the “equivalent amount of corresponding fiat currency” held by Tether and “safely deposited” in Tether’s bank accounts.”
Thus it should not be surprising that a lot of people in the crypto community are concerned that Tether is a sham and a potential threat to the legitimacy of the entire crypto universe. And some crypto loyalists are now trying to do something about it.
Mr. Whale is a part-investment advisor, part-commentator, part-art dealer, part-comedian for the crypto community (and thus a good encapsulation of where investment news may be heading). Cryptowhale, his website, recently announced a “Tether Bounty” program—a program “cracking down on fraud” by “reward[ing] individuals or firms with up to...
A British science journalist-turned-attorney who initiated a lawsuit that saw a Harvard University-affiliated cancer centre pay $15 million (11 million) to settle claims of alleged data misreprese...