The Coin That Could Wreck Crypto
Summary
Long one of the most scrutinized companies in the industry, Tether is facing heightened pressure from regulators, investors, economists and growing legions of skeptics, who argue it could be another domino to fall in an even bigger crash. As cryptocurrencies plummeted, a flood of investors asked to exchange their Tethers for dollars, forcing the company to pay out about an eighth of its reserves, or $10 billion, over the course of a week and a half. “We’re not fooling around, and we take risk management extremely seriously.” Then on Sunday, the crypto bank Celsius Network announced it was halting withdrawals, causing digital currency prices to crash again. He and his partner, Reeve Collins, later handed control of the firm to a former plastic surgeon named Giancarlo Devasini, who has stored some of Tether’s assets in a bank in the Bahamas run by one of the creators of the “Inspector Gadget” cartoon. Its chief executive, JL van der Velde, is a Dutch businessman whose LinkedIn profile suggests he is based in Hong Kong; the company declined to confirm his location.
