Tether and Bitfinex Ordered to Pay $42.5 Million Fine by the CFTC

The United States Commodity and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has ordered Tether and Bitfinex to pay fines worth $42.5 million.

• In a release from today, October 15th, Tether Holdings Limited, Tether Limited, Tether Operations Limited, and Tether International Limited – all companies associated with the issuer of the largest stablecoin USDT, Tether, were ordered to pay a fine worth $41 million.
• This was issued by the CFTC on the grounds of “misleading statements and omissions of material fact in connection with the U.S. dollar token USDT.”
• Additionally, the companies have been ordered to cease and desist from any further violations of the CEA (Commodity Exchange Act).
• Going forward, the Commission also issued a separate order against BFXNA Inc., iFinex Inc., and BFXWW Inc – companies associated with the popular cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex.
• They must pay $1.5 million in a civil monetary penalty for engaging in illegal, off-exchange retail commodity transactions with US citizens on the cryptocurrency exchange.
• Commenting on the matter was Rostin Behnam, acting chair of the CFTC, who said:

The case highlights the expectation of honesty and transparency in the rapidly growing and developing digital assets marketplace. […] The CFTC will continue to take decisive action to bring to light untrue or misleading statements that impact CFTC jurisdictional markets.”