By Larry Wright
Tether is a splendid stablecoin that has a fairly decent market capitalization and is being traded actively among crypto traders. Tether has never been under any criminal scrutiny; however, a recent news piece has allegedly changed this status a bit. According to a report, Tether is allegedly under investigation and facing an inquiry from the department of justice over the company’s past interaction with the banking partners.
It was Bloomberg that broke the news about the possible DOJ investigation going against Tether in possibly bank fraud charges. According to their sources, the information came from three anonymous personnel familiar with the whole thing. The possible node of investigation that DOJ is conducting is to find out if the banks were aware of the crypto-based transactions carried out by Tether when the crypto was in business with these banks.
Tether may Face Legal Challenges
If you give it a thorough investigative eye, then you would see that Tether is the largest stable coin by market capitalization, which is another possible reason of worry for the whole crypto market and, at the time of writing, the total number of tokens that are out there in circulation is estimated at $68 billion. This whole thing is a worrisome pivot for the whole crypto market; if the investigation goes through and the closed files are dusted clean and reopened, who knows what kind of demons would come crawling out of those records.
It is not the first time that Tether is in a legal crosshair as it has already been in a tussle with the New York attorney general office and the Bitfinex Company, luckily both reached a valid standpoint and managed to shake hands on some common ground. The middle ground was the penalty of fine to both companies and an instant halt on serving the New York-based customers. Who knows what kind of situation we have developing here or how it would play it, but one thing is for sure that the crypto market lacks regulation and is in imminent need of it.