The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has fined Tether and Bitfinex a total of $42.5 million over false claims and illegal transactions. According to an official statement, Tether, the company behind the USDT stablecoin, was fined $41 million for making untrue or "misleading statements" that USDT was fully backed by US dollars.
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The CFTC also fined $1.5 million iFinex, the operator of the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange, platform over engaging in "illegal, off-exchange retail commodity transactions" in cryptocurrencies with US persons without registering as required.
"This 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," said Acting Chairman of CFTC, Rostin Behnam.
Tether noted in a statement that CFTC's order "found no issues relating to Tether's current operations." The move comes after the CFTC also accused Kraken of conducting margin transactions with digital assets without registering as an authorized futures commission merchant (FCM).
Kraken violated the provisions of the Futures Trading Act by offering related products from June 2020 to June 2021. In addition, such transactions must be conducted on a designated contract market (DCM), with Kraken not being registered as such either.
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