Tether implicated in Russian weapons sales, completes security audit
Tether announced on April Fool’s Day that it had completed an audit — unfortunately, it was a security audit, not a financial audit, the results were not shared publicly, and the positive news came on the heels of a WSJ article implicating the stablecoin in the Russian acquisition of weapons for its ongoing war in Ukraine.
A press release states that Tether, which has taken to proclaiming itself “the largest company in the cryptocurrency industry” over the past month, has completed an audit “ensuring that Tether had robust IT control measures in place to make sure their systems were safe.”
It did not bother to explain how over $30 million worth of USDT was somehow hacked and moved in 2017.
Tether audit comes with good and really bad news
While any audit that Tether can complete is undoubtedly good news, the security audit was announced shortly after a highly critical WSJ article that detailed the use of USDT by Vladimir Putin’s regime to purchase weapons and ammunition. A Russian gun smuggler, Andrey Zverev, used USDT and Garantex (a Russian crypto exchange) to purchase guns and ammo for the Russian military.
Read more: UK crypto firm Copper sent 1,700 ETH to Russian arms dealer, report
If the WSJ article is accurate then the security audit and the fact that Tether is now the largest company in the crypto industry hold little water compared to the possible ramifications of being Putin’s cryptocurrency of choice.
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