- The CEO of Tether, Paolo Ardoino, told DL News that his company was determined to work with the law enforcement.
- The state oil company PDVSA has been using Tether as a way to avoid IS sanctions.
- We’re not police.
The US sanctioned Venezuela’s oil company with new sanctions last week. Like many other entities, it turned to USDT, Tether’s stablecoin.
USDT is a liquid alternative to the dollar, with a value market of $10 billion. It offers an alternative for entities that have been kicked out of the international financial world.
This lifeline will not last long if Paolo Ardoino is the CEO of Tether.
Wallet freeze
Tether announced on Tuesday that it will freeze the wallets of any entity trying to avoid sanctions.
Ardoino told DL News Tether announced earlier in the month its commitment to work closely with international law enforcement agencies and clamp down on illegal financial transactions using USDT.
We don’t go to sleep. “We monitor everything that we can but we’re not a nation,” Ardoino said.
Tether has said that it is working closely with law enforcement and different agencies to freeze USDT tokens worth about $500,000,000.
He said that the government is careful to not interfere with investigations in progress by freezing assets prematurely.
The more you move, the more breadcrumbs are left behind. This makes it easy to track the money.
Ardoino is hoping that Tether’s new position will reduce the pressure on it from legislators and regulators. The stablecoin has been a source of much controversy.
Elizabeth Warren is a Democrat Senator from Massachusetts who has been a leading critic of cryptography on Capitol Hill. You can find out more about this by clicking here. Tether’s and Bitcoin’s roles in the deadly fentanyl market.
The United Nations published a report earlier this year Find out more about The USDT amount of $17 billion was linked to illegal crypto-exchanges, criminal activity, and illicit trades in Southeast Asia.
Choose your currency
TRM Labs is a company that specializes in crypto-sleuthing. Call us today to learn more about our services. USDT is the currency of choice for terrorist financing. Chainalysis Report Shown Below Stablecoins like Tether make up about 60% of illegal transactions.
The report states that sanctioned entities have a “greater incentive” to use stablecoins because they face greater challenges in accessing dollars through conventional means, but want to still benefit from its stability. states.
![Volume of illicit transactions by asset types, from 2018 to 2023.](https://www.dlnews.com/resizer/t0xcfDDdeWTMdzamg7vn5obdlgQ=/1440x0/filters:format(png):quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/dlnews/EPNDSVR5YNCUHCTK6MFXS3XVZE.png)
JPMorgan Chase analysts Tell them to get on with it Clients say that USDT’s dominance “is negative for the stablecoin ecosystem and crypto-ecosystem more generally.”
The company’s continued reliance on “attestations”, rather than an audit of the reserves, is not helping.
Ardoino wants to convince one of the Big Four Accounting firms to become a member. Audit its Books To demonstrate that it has sufficient dollar reserves to support USDT’s peg.
![Workers from PDVSA at a protest.](https://www.dlnews.com/resizer/pJm7Shd_OoV2iOotwxBErwpdjso=/1440x0/filters:format(jpg):quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/dlnews/2HFMPHT6CFF7LJ53FU2M6WMBUQ.jpg)
The Venezuelan situation is threatening to raise more questions about Tether, just when Ardoino tries to move on.
This time the US has thrown the stablecoin into a foreign policy conflict.
Today is Tuesday Reuters Reports indicate that PDVSA began using Tether last year and Biden Administration sanctions have accelerated the use of stablecoins.
Economic motor is crucial
Oil is the most important economic engine for this South American nation, with the largest reserves of oil in the world.
The US has implemented economic sanctions as a punishment for President Nicolas Maduro. He is a powerful leader who succeeded Hugo Chavez after his death in 2013.
Nicolas Maduro, and his representatives, have failed to fully meet the obligations made in the agreement on the electoral roadmap. General License 44, which authorized oil and gas transactions with Venezuela will expire at midnight.
— Matthew Miller (@StateDeptSpox) 17 April 2024 Venezuelan oil giant responded by urging new customers to create a digital wallet to hold cryptocurrency to avoid these new sanctions. Reuters reported.
Tether did not waste any time stating it respected the US Treasury Department’s sanctions list.
“[Tether] “is committed to work to ensure that sanction addresses are quickly frozen,” a spokeswoman told DL News.
Ardoino stated that Tether has never directly worked with any sanctioned entities. He said that these entities are using USDT on platforms outside of Tether’s own, where the market, not company policies, is dominant.
He said: “Secondary Markets are blockchains and other exchanges.” DL News. There is nothing in the law that states that Tether has responsibility for these tokens.
The company, in the past, has frozen tokens sold on secondary markets.
Tether frozen in October $873,000 In tokens linked to Hamas donations and illegal activity in Ukraine.
In November, Tether also froze $250 Million The theft of USDT is linked to scams involving crypto-romance.
These relatively low amounts are still significant when compared to the USDT suspiciously worth $17 billion that the UN has identified.
Tether has a limited amount of functionality.
Ardoino says, “We’re not police.” “We do not work in law enforcement.”
Liam Kelly, a Berlin-based musician. DL News correspondent. Contact him at liam@dlnews.com.