Tether · Iran · US Senate · Democrats · Wall Street · CoinDesk
Tether is a ‘lifeline’ for Iranian regime, Senate Dems say in new report
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U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin Tether is a go-to tool for the Iranian government to bypass sanctions, a new report from a group of Senate Democrats said.
Key facts
- Democrats on the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence published a report Monday laying out the argument that Tether USDT $1,0000
- The report did not include an overall total sum for how much USDT it alleged the Iranian government transacted with, but said the government made an estimated $2 billion in transactions last year
- Monday, Tether said it had "supported nearly $550 million in Iran-linked" freezes, listing several recent actions it said it took at the behest of U.S. authorities
- The report cast Iran's use of USDT as a broader indictment of crypto more generally, saying "cryptocurrencies are actively undermining the attempts of the United States and its allies to prevent
Summary
Democrats on the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence published a report Monday laying out the argument that Tether USDT $1,0000 plays a key role in allowing Iran to conduct transactions that skirt international sanctions. "Iran's cryptocurrency-based shadow banking network has processed significant volumes of funds and implicates various Iranian interests," the report said, adding that Tether has "repeatedly failed" to block Iran-connected wallets. "USDT has become a significant financial lifeline within Iran's shadow banking network," the report said. When Tether does freeze wallets, it sometimes takes weeks, but the company also sometimes responds to requests without blacklisting wallets, the report claimed.