The issuer of a star cryptocurrency is being sued for $1.4trn
Oct 10th 2019LAUNCHED AS REALCOIN in July 2014, Tether aimed to become a more reliable alternative to Bitcoin, the best-known cryptocurrency. With a $4.1bn market capitalisation, it is now the fifth-largest virtual currency. But its efforts to gain investors’ trust have fallen short. On October 6th a group filed a class-action lawsuit in New York, accusing Tether of being “part-fraud, part-pump-and-dump, and part-money laundering”. They call for truly startling damages: more than $1.4trn.In response to The Economist’s queries, Tether’s general counsel said that “the lawsuit is meritless and the plaintiffs’ complaint is rife with errors.” The firm “has not used Tethers to manipulate any market”, he added, and operates in “full conformity with applicable laws”.Choose us for news analysis that respects your time and intelligenceSubscribe to The EconomistWe filter out the noise of the daily news cycle and analyse the trends that matterWe give you rigorous, deeply researched and fact-checked journalism. That’s why Americans named us their most trusted news source in 2017Available wherever you are—in print, digital and, uniquely, in audio, fully narrated by professional broadcastersThis website adheres to all nine of NewsGuard‘s standards of credibility and transparency.ORContinue reading this articleRegister with an email address