Tether isn’t a Blockchain company. At best, it’s illegal bank, at worst, it’s the largest financial fraud in history.
Tether claims to be a “crypto” company, or a “Blockchain” company, the truth is, they simply use Blockchain as a database, which in the grand scheme of things, with regards to Tether, is no different than an SQL database that is used by a bank.
Imagine a traditional bank that uses an SQL database, with no column fields for the identity of their customers, instead the bank maintains a second table, to identify some of their customers (the ones that deposit funds directly, like Sam Bankman-Fried, allegedly).
Anyone, including ponzi scammers, financial frauds, pig butcherers, sanctioned countries, money launderers, etc. can sign up for an account at this SQLBank, providing absolutely no information about themselves, they literally just get assigned a bank account number. They simply go to SQLBank.com and click “Generate Account” and a public/private key appears, and they’re off to the races!
SQLBank, despite holding an account for this “entity”, attempts to not even call them a “customer”, but they have an account number… and their… “entity”, can send and receive funds without the slightest interference just as if they’re a “customer”.
It’s like a US bank allowing anonymous accounts, or numbered bank accounts, where anyone that knows the number and a password can access the funds.
This bank would be completely illegal to operate.
Of course, SQLBank still could freeze these accounts, but if they receive a court order to freeze the accounts belonging to… terrorist organizations, it’s not like they can identify which accounts are subject to the freezes, they would need the address to freeze, which they might not get until after a terrorist attack, and after the money has been laundered.
The Role of NO-KYC/AML Crypto Exchanges and Shitcoins
This is where NO-KYC/AML Crypto Exchanges and Shitcoins come into play. The role of these exchanges and shitcoins is to cycle dirty money through hundreds, if not thousands of various crypto shitcoins, in order to function as a mixer. By the time authorities find the addresses to freeze, it’s been laundered a thousand times by a NO-KYC/AML exchange and belongs to someone else who may not be involved.
This is what you’re seeing when you see some random new shitcoin skyrocket 1,500% in ten minutes on exchanges, and why they inevitably always crash once they’re done laundering. It’s why you see JPEG’s selling for more than a house. They’re laundering money.
This laundering of funds would not be possible without frauds like Tether, because they would not have a dollar reference that they could use, because these NO-KYC/AML Crypto Exchanges could never hope to open actual bank accounts, so they use frauds such as Tether.
Tether is critical to these criminal enterprises. As more scrutiny comes onto Tether, it can trigger panics, where criminals who have Tethers, seek to launder them by buying every shitcoin under the sun, triggering a “bull market”, and with the recently scrutiny against Tether, it could be a tell that the current bull market is simply illicit financiers looking to launder their money before the hammer drops.
Shutting down NO-KYC/AML exchanges is a fools errand
Attempting to shutdown NO-KYC/AML exchanges is absolutely pointless, because they literally just have Whitebox Exchange software that they can just slap a new coat of paint, and do it all over again, remember when BTC-E shutdown as a result of FBI seizures, they just created WEX, and whatever subsequent exchanges that came after WEX blew up. It’s a never ending cycle of exchanges that pop up to launder money.
The only solution to this, is to simply shutdown the illegal bank supporting these platforms. Tether.
It recently came out that Tether laundered over $20 billion dollars for Russian entities on Bloomberg.
Tether claims to be “working with authorities”, however, their’s not much they can do because the vast majority of Tether transactions, Tether has no idea who they are, in violation of every possible financial law you could imagine. Tether is de-facto providing US dollar based bank accounts for Russian exchanges in violations of US sanctions.
The NO-KYC/AML exchanges further complicate the situation by allowing dirty money to be mixed with crypto shitcoins and Tethers. It’s one of the reasons why these exchanges tend to die shortly after being forced by regulators to implement KYC/AML rules.
Circle, the issuer of USDC was dumb enough to buy Poloniex for hundreds of millions of dollars, and then brought in KYC/AML compliance. The Poloniex exchange pretty much died immediately, and Circle sold the exchange to Justin Sun, who immediately removed all of the KYC/AML compliance to turn it back into it’s original shitcoin casino.
It’s also why Binance fought against KYC/AML compliance for years, because at the end of the day, these exchanges know they’re simply money laundering conduits, and compliance destroys their ability to launder money, and kills off their exchanges. The executives knew what they were doing.
There’s no “fix” for this!
Tethers claim to fame is non-compliance with KYC/AML, in fact, their website original bragged and advertised this fact, advertising that you could convert Crypto to Tethers without any KYC/AML.
Tether still operates this way, but Tether simply doesn’t brag about it on their website anymore. Tethers compliance with financial laws is mostly just pretend, much like how FTX pretended to comply with KYC/AML, but in reality, didn’t.
Bringing Tether to compliance is a non-starter, because Tether would have to operate on a Whitelist mode, meaning Tether would need to maintain full KYC/AML on every single Tether address.
Tether is ill equipped to comply with this requirement, demonstrated by their inability to even complete a single full financial audit in the past seven years, despite promising one repeatedly. If Tether cannot even conduct a financial audit of their transactions and reserves, performing full KYC/AML compliance is an even taller order.
The crypto industry has long ignored the Tether fraud, hoping that it would just go away, but we can assure you, it’s not going away. Tethers fraud is just getting larger and larger, which is why we’re seeing Tether being hit by the US Congress, and their counterparty Cantor Fitzgerald being identified as enabling Tethers illicit finance.
When I warned people about FTX in 2021, people ignored me. A lot of people lost a lot of money because the questions I raised about FTX/SBF were ignored. I submitted questions to reporters to ask SBF, and most reporters didn’t bother to ask them.
FTX likely would have collapsed much faster had those questions been asked.
It’s time to ask the difficult questions to the Tether fraud, but notably, their Chief Financial Officer, Giancarlo Devasini, is nowhere to be found.
Interestingly, FTX officials have been caught bragging in insider chat rooms about how “Money for Sam is Money for Giancarlo”.
Where did Sam Bankman-Fried send all of his stolen loot? Remember when he stole customers funds to buy shitcoins? Who sold him the shitcoins?
Tether co-conspirators.
Of course, the FTX fraud isn’t Tethers only rodeo, we also have laundering money for terrorists and financial criminals.
Good luck!
-Bitfinex’ed
