Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino Denies Any Indication of Investigation, Declares Reserves

At a recent event in Switzerland, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino presented a detailed overview of the reserve assets supporting the company’s Tether-USD stablecoin and denied reports of Tether being under investigation by the United States Department of Justice and the Treasury.

Ardoino disclosed that Tether has nearly $100 Billion in US treasuries, more than 82,000 Bitcoin, valued at roughly $5.5 billion based on current market prices, and 48 tons of gold. 

The categorical clarification at Lugano’s PlanB event came out as crypto investors grappled with the fear, uncertainty, and doubt especially after a recent Wall Street Journal report stated that US authorities were investigating Tether for allegedly violating anti-money laundering laws and US sanctions.

We had also reported on Tether facing alleged charges of violations related to sanctions and anti-money-laundering (AML) regulations based on sources available. As the news caught wildfire, Ardoino denied the claims, stating “As we told the WSJ, there is no indication that Tether is under investigation. WSJ is regurgitating old noise. Full stop.” Ardoino also pressed upon Tether’s record of complying with laws and regulations to recover stolen digital assets and freeze illegal transactions to “help prevent rogue nations, terrorists, and criminals from misusing USDT”. “We would know if we are being investigated as the article falsely claimed. Based on that, we can confirm that the allegations in the article are unequivocally false,” said citing WSJ reports.

At Tether, we deal regularly and directly with law enforcement officials to help prevent rogue nations, terrorists and criminals from misusing USDt. We would know if we are being investigated as the article falsely claimed. Based on that, we can confirm that the allegations in…

— Paolo Ardoino 🤖🍐 (@paoloardoino) October 25, 2024

Tether stated that it has reportedly helped law enforcement recover nearly $109 million used in illegal activities such as fraud, sanctions evasion, and cybercrime since 2014. 

At the event, the CEO also presented a preview of Tether’s Local AI development kit, privacy focused, powered by peer-to-peer technology. He wrote on X, “Terher’s AI SDK is extremely modular, supports any model (Marian, Llama, …) and loads/stores weights and fine-tuning data in P2P data structures.”

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