$46.5 Million USDT Owned by FTX Frozen by Tether at Request of Law Enforcement
Major stablecoin issuer Tether froze $46.5 million of USDT held by the collapsing crypto exchange FTX, reportedlyat the request of law enforcement.
Specifically, this is the USDT held on the Tron blockchain in a wallet belonging to FTX, according to block explorer Tronscan.
This wallet contains USDT 46,549,320, along with some TRX, USDD, and other coins, with a total value of $66.4 million. This means that the majority of the wallet's contents have been frozen.
That said, the reason appears to be a legal investigation.
CoinDesk quoted a Tether executive as stating that the company is "starting to receive requests from [law enforcement] to temporarily freeze assets while an investigation occurs."
Among the law enforcement agencies with which a spokesperson said Tether has "open dialogue," they named the US Department of Justice.
As reported, the DoJ and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are currently investigating FTX. Furthermore, reportedly, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is said to have already been investigating FTX’s handling of customer funds and its crypto-lending activities for several months, while also looking into FTX’s relationship with FTX US.
Tether Global has been rumored to have been connected to FTX and its parent company Alameda Research. The company, however, issued a statement on Wednesday claiming that,
"Tether has absolutely no credit towards FTX or Alameda Research. Tether is completely unexposed to Alameda Research or FTX.’’
Additionally, Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino tweeted that the company will not be providing any financial support to FTX.
Tether further reiterated that the majority of Tether's reserves are now US Treasuries.
In a Thursday announcement, it "highlighted a
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