Company behind Tether ‘token’ fined $41M by US regulators

By ALEX VEIGA
AP Business Writer

The company behind a digital token called Tether has agreed to pay $41 million to settle charges that it misled investors for years by falsely claiming its token was fully backed at all times by U.S. dollars and other fiat currencies. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Friday that between June 2016 and February 2019 Tether Holdings misrepresented to customers that it maintained sufficient U.S. dollar reserves to back every Tether token in circulation with the equivalent amount of “corresponding fiat currency.”  In a statement, Tether said the CFTC’s findings pertained to certain disclosures about the company’s reserves that were “fully resolved” in February 2019, when the company updated its terms of service.