Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has responded to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s recent remarks suggesting that the US government is targeting Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer in the world. Ardoino took to social media platform X to address the potential US agency action against his firm and criticized Garlinghouse for spreading fear about Tether’s stablecoin, USDT. He pointed out the hypocrisy of Garlinghouse’s comments, considering that Ripple itself is under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is planning to launch its own stablecoin to compete with USDT.
Ardoino emphasized that USDT is the leading stablecoin in terms of market share, with millions of users worldwide, and it has been instrumental in providing banking services to users in developing economies. He highlighted several factors that make USDT compliant and widely used, including Tether’s collaboration with 124 law enforcement agencies across more than 40 countries. Since its launch, Tether has blocked over $1.3 billion of assets associated with scams, hacks, and money laundering. Notably, Tether has blocked more than $639 million in assets in collaboration with US law enforcement.
Ardoino also revealed that Tether has voluntarily complied with 198 requests from law enforcement to block wallets in the past year, with 90 of those requests coming from US law enforcement agencies. Over the past three years, Tether has complied with a total of 339 requests, 158 of which were from US law enforcement.
In a witty conclusion, Ardoino commented on the practices of other stablecoin issuers, stating that while Tether cooperates directly with law enforcement agencies, other issuers only comply with judicial orders.
Garlinghouse’s comments about the possibility of another crypto-related black swan event and the US government targeting Tether were seen by many in the crypto community as a sign of upcoming regulatory action. However, some viewed it as a competitive tactic, as Ripple plans to launch its own stablecoin in the near future.
Cointelegraph reached out to Tether for further comments but has not received a response yet.
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