Tether chief exec Paolo Ardoino has taken to X (formerly Twitter) to tease that Tether is prepared to “unveil its new class of digital assets” next week. 

It’s not clear exactly what digital assets will be announced next week, but we do know that they will be the latest in a long line of digital assets launched by the stablecoin giant, many of which have now been largely forgotten.

The most popular asset Tether has created is, of course, USDT, which is ‘tethered’ to the value of the US dollar. However, it also has assets tied to other currencies like the Euro, Offshore Yuan, and the Mexican Peso. 

Perhaps the most interesting of these assets is the Offshore Yuan Tether, which was launched in collaboration with Zhao Dong. Dong was once one of the most prominent over-the-counter traders in China and had previously disclosed that he was a Tether shareholder.

After the announcement of this product, he was arrested and eventually convicted of charges equivalent to money laundering in China. The last time any of this asset left the Tether Treasury on Ethereum was 2019 and the most recent time assets went back to the Treasury was January 2023. On Tron Offshore Yuan Tether has only left the Treasury once, also in January 2023.

Read more: China’s crypto king pleads guilty to laundering $480M for online casinos, report

The Euro version of Tether has less than €32 million in circulation, largely on the Omni Layer, an implementation that Tether announced last year it was discontinuing support for. The last transaction from the issuer address for Euro tether on the Omni layer was in 2019 to revoke 1,000 tokens, a quantity well under the $100,000 USD minimum redemption size that Tether advertises.

The story is barely any better on Ethereum, where the last time tokens left the Tether Treasury was in July of 2022. 

The Mexican Peso version of Tether is a newer asset launched in 2022 and there are approximately Mex$20 million in circulation. No assets have left the Tether Treasury for this asset since June of 2022. 

Furthermore, Tether has never shared an audit or attestation for any of these assets. 

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The crypto community has been advised by Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino to remain vigilant following the reported compromise of a mailing list management platform that works with crypto companies.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Ardoino claimed to have received two separate reports that “a prominent vendor” had been compromised.

The breach was confirmed by CoinGecko’s Bobby Ong, who warned users to be on the lookout for suspicious emails, which may include scams such as “fake token launches.”

In an industry plagued by constant scams, a crypto-specific mailing list can be a lucrative resource for parting unsuspecting users with their tokens.

Last September, a similar air of paranoia swept the community when data analysis platform Nansen was breached, losing email addresses and some users’ (hashed) passwords and blockchain addresses.

Read more: Pink Drainer ‘steps back from the grind’ after stealing $75M from victims

A digital minefield

As well as targeted emails, victims are typically lured in via broader brush approaches, which then serves victims with a ‘wallet drainer’ script. Compromised (or lookalike) accounts on X take advantage of FOMO by imitating genuine projects, promising airdrops or the chance to be ‘early’ to a new token. 

Another approach involves leveraging users’ fear, replying to legitimate posts in the wake of a hack, with malicious links promising to refund victims or secure users wallets from imminent danger.

Just yesterday, a user lost over $2M worth of crypto to a phishing scam. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT, who flagged the loss via his Telegram channel, suspects the victim likely fell for a fake airdrop announcement published by Renzo Protocol’s compromised X account.

Read more: Depeg of $3B restaking token ezETH causes over $60M in DeFi liquidations

Staying safe

Various tools exist for spotting these scams before it’s too late, yet millions of dollars worth of crypto is still lost each month.

Some tools aim to make malicious X accounts more visible, highlighting posts originating from accounts that aim to impersonate a legitimate organization or individual.

Wallet guards, such as BlockAid, are able to simulate the results of a transaction before signing, and can warn users if their funds will be transferred unexpectedly, or to a known malicious actor. However, a high proportion of false positives has led some to criticize the approach, worried it will lead to a ‘boy who cried wolf’ situation.

Last year, in order to combat so-called ‘address poisoning’ scams, popular Ethereum block explorer Etherscan added two new features to its website.

The scam involves fake tokens, or small amounts of genuine tokens, being sent to crypto users from ‘spoofed’ addresses in the hope that the user will mistakenly copy the malicious address while making future transfers.

Read more: Refund of $70M ‘address poisoning’ scam ongoing, over 50% returned

In April, zero-value token transfers were hidden by default. Then, in November, address highlighting was added, in an attempt to make spoofed addresses less effective.

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Ripple chief exec Brad Garlinghouse recently expressed his view via the World Class podcast that the “US Government is going after Tether” before emphasizing how important it is to the ecosystem.

This comment received a response from Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino on X (formerly Twitter), who attributed the comments from Garlinghouse to “An uniformed [sic] CEO, leading a company being investigated by the SEC, launching a competitive stablecoin (cui prodest).” 

Ripple announced last month that it intended to launch a US dollar-pegged stablecoin.

In his lengthy tweet, Ardoino also emphasized that Tether has “proved over time to have… top-tier custodians and profound compliance.”

Read more: The rise and fall of Crypto Capital Corp, crypto’s premiere shadow bank

For context re these ‘top-tier custodians,’ Tether once gave nearly a billion dollars of commingled client and corporate funds to an unlicensed money transmitter accused of money laundering for the cartels without even signing a contract.

Additionally, when considering Tether’s profound compliance, it’s important to note that it has previously settled with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over allegations that it failed to maintain advertised reserves, issued tethers against funds it hadn’t received, and used bank accounts of Tether associates to send and receive funds related to Tether.

Ardoino additionally emphasized that Tether had “onboarded the FBI and USSS for reissuances” and has worked “with 124 law enforcement agencies” over “198 requests from law enforcement to block wallets.” 

He also drew further comparisons between his firm and other stablecoins, pointing out that Tether “cooperates directly with law enforcement agencies, while other stablecoins, although they claim to be ‘more compliant’ they require a judge order, allowing hackers, scammers, and criminals a long time to move funds around.”

Ripple isn’t the only stablecoin issuer who has implied that Tether is among the targets of law enforcement. Indeed, Dante Disparte of Circle accused Tether of “counterfeiting the US dollar.” 

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In a rare interview with Paolo Ardoino, the CTO of Tether, Camila Russo from The Defiant podcast was able to discuss the embattled $82 billion stablecoin. The always-cagey executive suite of Tether refused to answer any important questions — but some gems still appeared in the rough.

During the 40-minute interview published on Tuesday, Russo pushed Ardoino to name Tether’s banking partners.

“Tether Truthers… or the haters, they like to harass these banks,” he said, suggesting the multibillion dollar marketcap stablecoin couldn’t provide banking details publicly or ‘haters’ would barrage a bank.

Tether can’t be transparent because BitBoy

Ardoino alluded to Ben Armstrong, known as BitBoy, without mentioning the crypto influencer by name. “We had, in the past, cases of physical harassment directly on the premises of these banks,” the Tether CTO explained.

Back in November, BitBoy visited the headquarters of Deltec Bank, a Bahamas-based bank of Tether, to ‘expose’ the firm.

“Across the internet, there’s conspiracy theories that you guys don’t have the money you say that you have, and that Tether is a ticking time bomb, and that you guys are tied to it, and it’s gonna blow up the entire space,” Armstrong said to a Deltec employee outside of its headquarters, AirPods still in his ears. “What is the relationship between Deltec and USDT?”

“This isn’t the right space to have this conversation,” the Deltec employee replied.

On Tuesday, Armstrong was severed from his brand by a firm that owned the intellectual property to BitBoy content, citing substance abuse and the “emotional, physical, and financial damage he has done to the employees.”

Read more: Astroturfing and fake support for Tether and Bitfinex

Obfuscation, whataboutism, and a twist of fate

Russo’s interview, similar to previous hostile interviews with Ardoino and Tether General Counsel Stuart Hoegner, was unable to provide any light on the questions still surrounding the assets making up Tether’s reserves and why the firm remains unable to get an audit.

Ardoino repeatedly pointed to the failures of US banks like Silicon Valley and Signature as hypocrisy in the face of Tether thriving. However, he also admitted that “an audit is pretty simple for a stablecoin… the issue is mainly reputational.”

Ardoino clarified shortly afterward, “there is always the perceived risk — not of Tether — but of the industry.”

As fate would have it, Bloomberg revealed the name of a new Tether banking partner right as Ardoino was dodging Russo’s questions about Tether’s banking partners. Britannia Bank & Trust is yet another in a long line of Bahamian banks that the stablecoin has relied on, including Deltec and Capital Union.

The interview between Russo and Ardoino ended aptly. Laughing, almost knowing how absurd it is that Tether has failed to deliver a promised audit for a whopping eight years, Ardoino said, “Believe it or not, we are still committed to working on the audit.”

Here’s hoping.

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