Reposting from r/cryptocurrency
IMO this is a big deal that doesn't get talked about enough here, and too much on r/buttcoin.
TBH you're probably better off reading the full settlement doc it's not that long, and quite clear.
For the unfamiliar, Bitfinex prints Tether(USDT), a stablecoin 1-1 with USD. It has some of the highest volume on the market because it facilitates exchange and the ability to park your gains temporarily without converting to fiat. Current market cap: $38.7B. They recently settled with the AG in New York over fraud investigations for $18.5M with some stipulations.
I haven't seen a good summary of the settlement agreement anywhere, so hopefully this is somewhat useful. Disclaimer: I'm not very smart, so besides the parts I'm taking directly from the document, take this with a healthy amount of salt.
Effective Date of the settlement: 2021/02/18
90 days from the Effective Date AKA deadline: 2021/05/19
Findings
Note: Bitfinex neither confirms nor denies any of this, but did agree to the settlement.
2017 Backing issue
• Tether's bank accounts are supposed to back USDT 1:1, and they did claim to do so at this time.
• Wells Fargo stopped accepting their wire transfers in late March, so they had to switch banks.
• Tether opened an acct with Bank of Montreal in September which never had more than $61.5M in it.
• At this time there were 442M tether in circulation, backed by only $61.5M. The remaining was backed by receivables (IOU) from Bitfinex, in a comingled account. Bitfinex did have this money as verified by Friedman LLP.
• Tl;dr Bitfinex had the funds instead of Tether, so from June to September, 442M USDT wasn't backed by their "own" assets.
2019 Loss of assets to Crypto Capital and reserve misrepresentation
• Bitfinex used Crypto Capital (CrC for brevity) for payment processing. PoC was named "Oz"
• By 2018, CrC held $1B of Bitfinex deposits.
• CrC supposedly had an account frozen in Poland with >$340M. Oz claimed this was temporary, and Bitfinex money was fine, but evaded transferring them the money with BS excuses ("bankers on vacation" lol).
• Between April 2018 and July 2018, Oz told Bitfinex that $150M of client money was frozen in Portugal.
• In July, Bitfinex had over 80% of client deposits with CrC, and $500M "frozen" with CrC (I'm unsure if it was actually frozen or if Oz just wouldn't give it to them). Bitfinex still told people to use CrC.
• Bitfinex borrowed $400M from Tether throughout summer 2018 to stave off the "temporary liquidity crisis".
• In November, Tether opened an acct with Deltec, and published a doc with Deltec letterhead confirming that they had $1.83B in their acct as of Oct 31.
• The next day, they transferred $475M to Bitfinex. Bitfinex at the same time purchased 150M USDT via CrC (frozen assets). Neither txn was disclosed.
• So once again, a large amount of USDT was unbacked because funds were sitting in Bitfinex's acct.
• In Feb 2019, they quietly changed their wording about USDT backing to include other assets.
• Between late 2018 and March 2019, Bitfinex opened a line of credit from Tether which retroactively included $625M (475 + 150) already transferred. This was collateralized with Digifinex shares, Bitfinex's parent company.
• Tl;dr 675M USDT went unbacked to cover ~$850M in Bitfinex funds held by Crypto Capital (maybe fraudulent?). They continued claiming this wasn't the case, and the transfers weren't disclosed. As of today, the money Bitfinex had with Crypto Capital cannot be accounted for.
Consequencecs
$18.5M for the settlement. Not tax deductible. Paid in full, ensuring AG will not bring any claims against Bitfinex regarding the above matters if they do the following:
• Repay the full line of credit balance as of Jan 2021. (Edit: they announced this was paid off)
• Block all trading with New York people and entities. AG can ask for evidence this is being done.
• Halt all business with New York entities besides KYC, Anti-Money Laundering, blockchain analysis or tracing, user risk scoring, legal services.
• No OTC trading in New York.
• Reporting on business operations - By deadline (May 19), and following that, quarterly for 2 years, Bitfinex/Tether has to provide:
• Documents substantiating Tether's reserve acct(s) balance. (Important!)
• Verification that Bitfinex and Tether's accounts are separated and in order. Are tether reserves held separately from operating accts? Are Bitfinex and Tether accts separate? Are Bitfinex client accts separate from operating? Are virtual client funds segregated?
• All documentation of transfers between Bitfinex and Tether.
• Quarterly publication of Tether reserves for 2 years (Important!). Tether will have to publish what percentage of its assets are cash, loans, securities, etc, also specifying if loans and receivables are from/to an affiliated entity. I don't know when they do this, but it's quarterly, so hopefully we get to see something by Q1 end. If not then, then by Q2 end.
• Transparency and opt-out from payment processors - By deadline (May 19), and quarterly for 2 years after:
• Publish a list of pament processors, and all DD about payment processors they've done. This information excluding the DD must be available to users upon request.
• Notify users and give them the option to opt out of using payment processors.
My take on what this means
Short answer: No clue. Long answer: No fucking clue.
People are worried that tether is artificially pumping the price of crypto. Some interpret "USDT is backed by cash and other assets" as potentially USDT being backed by the crypto assets they're pumping. If this is the case, then when they stop printing, the crypto market could crash. On the other hand, others believe that the reliance on USDT is overstated since there's more transparent stablecoins in DAI and USDC and theoretically if the crash happens, it's overall a good thing.
Tether has a $30B+ market cap, which is a helluva lot of money. We'll find out how much of that is backed in May (or maybe earlier EoQ). Is r/buttcoin right, and crypto is funny money? Is r/bitcoin right that numbers only go up? Please argue a lot in the comments, thanks.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/m6r269/bitfinextether_settlement_summary_and_what/
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