Tether freezes 46.37 million USDT held for FTX at authorities’ request

Tether Limited, at the request of law enforcement authoritiesfrozen 46,370,701 USDT on the Tron blockchain,belonging to the cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

“We were ordered to freeze the assets for the duration of the investigation,” — commented CoinDesk representatives of the stablecoin issuer.

This is the first instance of a freeze affecting the funds of a crypto exchange.

Events around FTX led to a temporary deviation of USDT’s price from parity with the U.S. dollar. By the evening of November 10, the intraday discount of the stablecoin reached 3.8%, according to CoinGecko.

Chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino said there were no plans to bail out FTX.

Tether does not have any plans to invest or lend money to FTX/Alameda. Full stop.

— Paolo Ardoino 🍐 (@paoloardoino) November 10, 2022

According to Reuters, Sam Bankman-Fried discussed raising funds with Tron Foundation founder Justin Sun, as well as with the leadership of Sequoia Capital, OKX, and Tether Limited.

The agency said that a ‘hole’ in the balance sheet amounts to $9.4 billion, higher than the $8 billion cited by Bloomberg and the WSJ.

According to Axios, FTX also approached Kraken, but talks ended without result.

Earlier, on 10 November Binance declined to acquire a competitor. The company said it would not be able to resolve the problems facing the platform.

Later, Bankman-Fried stated that the exchange’s asset value exceeds customer deposits.

Earlier, Sequoia Capital acknowledged a loss of $213.5 million on investments in a crypto platform.

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