Tether CEO disputes Senate report on Iran-linked USDT

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino disputed a Senate staff report on Iran-related cryptocurrency activity, saying the company froze relevant USDT addresses before formal designations and that its actions helped cut Iran-linked stablecoin transaction volume by 94%. The figures are Ardoino’s claims; the Senate staff report described cases in which it said Tether blocked addresses only after funds had moved. In an Oct. 19 post, Ardoino said Tether froze relevant addresses an average of four weeks before official designations by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing. He also said Tether acted before Chainalysis labeled the addresses in 99% of cases. Those are separate comparisons: the four-week figure concerns official designations, while the 99% claim concerns Chainalysis labels. Ardoino attributed a 94% decline in Iran-linked stablecoin transaction volume to Tether’s enforcement actions. The supplied reporting does not provide a baseline or measurement period for that figure, and the underlying data have not been independently examined in the reporting. Ardoino did not say that Tether had frozen all 846 wallets...