[chrisco255]

Tether has been viewed as a weak-link in the crypto ecosystem and rumors of a potential Tether "scam" have swirled around since at least last year. People have speculated that Bitfinex (the company behind Tether) did not have the $2B in cash on hand to back the $2B worth of Tether (symbol: USDT which is supposed to trade at roughly 1:1 with the USD) in circulation.

They were subpoenaed, but so far no charges have been brought against them. It also looks like they recently changed banks, with Tether now using Deltec [1][2], a 72-year old Bahamas-based institution registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the US Department of the Treasury.

As far as that goes, I think it's a good thing that Tether has established a relationship with a reputable institution. It also shows that they are committed to anti-money laundering.

As far as fees go, it looks like unless you've got more than $1 million in USDT, you're looking at 0.4%-1% withdrawal fees. Meh. I mean, doesn't sound terrible...and honestly, it seems less and less likely now that USDT will crash the market (not that it needs any help with that at the moment).

[1] https://tether.to/tether-banking-relationship-announced/ [2] https://www.deltecbank.com/

[nosuchthing]

"a reputable institution" for off shore banking and money laundering currently under investigation.

https://thebitcoinnews.com/brazil-tether039s-new-banking-par...

https://www.livebitcoinnews.com/tethers-new-banker-in-the-cr...

[chrisco255]

https://www.bitcoininsider.org/article/46790/deltec-bank-tru...

https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/deltec-bank-trust-issues-pu...

Ok, so criminal gets caught, authorities order seizure of Venezuelan's assets held in bank...bank complies with authorities. Yawn. Got any more FUD?

[nosuchthing]

Sure

  In early April, unconfirmed rumors swirled around €400   
  million said to have been seized by Polish authorities 
  that were alleged to be tied to Bitfinex. As reported on 
  CoinTelegraph, the funds, claimed to be held in Bank 
  Spoldzielczy, were said to link Bitfinex to suspicious 
  activities in Colombia.

https://modernconsensus.com/cryptocurrencies/bitcoin/bitfine...

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitfinex-in-poland-were-there...

Sure sounds like Bitfinex is having a reoccurring theme of having their bank accounts shut down, and then finding banks in weird locations only to get them shut down within a month or two.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tether-found-bank-might-baham...

  “This banking information is commercially sensitive and 
  confidential. You should be very careful with this 
  information. You are asked to keep this information to 
  yourself and to not share it except with your financial 
  institution. Divulging this information could damage not   
  just yourself and Bitfinex, but the entire digital token 
  ecosystem. Accordingly, you are cautioned that there may 
  be serious negative effects associated with this 
  information becoming public.”

Seems legit

https://medium.com/@bitfinexed/bitfinex-and-tether-is-unaudi...

Tether auditor distances itself after publishing "not an audit" and then "Friedman Quietly Removes Bitfinex Mentions"

  A brief announcement posted on Friedman’s own site, dated 
  May 8th 2017 and titled “Friedman Selected as Crypto-Savvy 
  Auditor by Bitfinex” now links to a 404 page. For the 
  record, here’s an archived version.

https://web.archive.org/web/20171129082053/http://www.friedm...