“Hell is full of good wills”
San Bernardo de Claraval
Tether is flying too close to the sun. The proximity that the Stablecoins company is having with the US government is making it transit, of a tool for financial freedom, an asset to expand the control and hegemony of the US government.
In its story, Tether has served noble purposes. It has been a financial lifeguard for thousands of people in countries where their rulers defrauded and destroyed their coins. It has been one of the few stablecoins that has actively sought to expand in the Bitcoin and Lightning ecosystem. He has ventured into the decentralization of mining. Promotes privacy technologies such as Hlepunch that offer resistance to digital hypervigilance. These, among other actions, have made him gain confidence among Bitcoiners.
Although the rejection by the previous administrations of the United States made him face several judicial investigations, with the consequent media persecution known as Tether Fud and the Payment of fines over USD 40 million, such inquiries only strengthened Tether’s ties with the state bodies, to the point that The FBI and the Secret Service are incorporated into its platform since 2023as cryptootics then reported.
Tether has frozen transactions for up to USD 225 million at the request of US officials, demonstrating integration with the US financial surveillance system. And acting as an extension of its monetary control policies. Moreover, since 2023, they maintain a volunteer freezing policy, without waiting for an order from the authorities, to those wallets that are linked to people sanctioned in the list of specially designated nationals (SDN) of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
If so, when they raised suspicion among the state officials, now it is their friendly closeness with the current government that forces the scrutiny and to alert the users of their stablecoin about the risks of this apparent success of the company.
Let’s not overlook the obvious: USDT is directly anchored to the US dollar. As Stablecoin, USDT maintains a 1: 1 parity with the USD, which makes it a digital representation of the dollar, facilitating its global use and reinforcing the hegemony of the dollar in the world. This allows the US Government to indirectly extend the reach of the dollar through cryptocurrency networks through a private company, but with benefits for the demand for US assets.
Tether maintains More than 80% of its reservations In US Treasury Letters. Your latest reportTether has become one of the greatest world holders of US debt, surpassing Germany. This directly finances the US government by increasing the demand for its debt, and by absorbing part of the monetary issuance m2, exporting inflation outside the US.
The USDT pairing with the United States is so deep that even Tether’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, has declared that USDT is key to combating the delarization of the BRICS, linking Tether’s success to that of the United States. Here continues to grow ».
With the change of administration, business links have ended up being intertwined with government ties. Tether stores most of its USD 160 billion in total assets (not only treasure notes) with Fitzgerald singer, generating millions in commissions. Howard Lutnick, Excelo de Cantor, is now under Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, creating a direct link between Tether and the US government because now it is the children of Lutnick who carry the company. Moreover, after the Twentyone Capital Foundation, a joint business between Tether, Bitfinex, Cantor Fitzgerald and SoftBank for accumulation of Bitcoin, the links between Tether and the company led by the children of the secretary of the Treasury narrow. It will not take long before the United States Government includes participations in Tether, but now that They are looking to lift 15 to 20 billion dollars.
In the past, Ardoino has made it clear that the USDT market is outside the United States. Therefore, they looked for another way to comply with the new regulations of the Genius Law. They chose to issue Usat, a new stablcoin regulated by Genius and focused on the US, which will be directed by the former director of digital assets of the White House, Bo Hines.
When asked why he joined Tel, Hines mentioned the role of the company as an important buyer of American treasure bonds: “What they are doing for the US government is extremely important, from a public-private perspective,” Hines said. “They are one of the largest American debt buyerswhich helps us maintain greater control over our economy. ”
It is a cryptootic opinion that, with this regulation of Stablecoins, the United States managed to convert these instruments into its own CBDC. While at the discourse level they illegalized the issuance of a Central Bank digital currency, in practice, this law obliges Stablecoins to extend in part of the state arm.
Under the Genius Law, Stablecoins issuers become financial institutions, so they must submit cash transactions reports (CTR) and suspicious activities reports (SAR), the same monitoring that traditional banks do. They must implement customer identification programs (CIP) and due diligence improved (EDD) for high -risk accounts, especially in cross -border transactions. That is, beyond the transparency and traceability of the accounting of cryptocurrency networks, Stablecoins emitters must become direct informants of the State.
With the creation of Usat, Tether would have its US CBDC version to compete against the Circle CBDC, USDC, while keeping the United States monetary policy to the rest of the world with USDT.
All these factors demonstrate an existential integration of Tether into the heart of the US government. With 80% of its reservations in assets linked to the United States, at least at this time, Tether’s survival is linked to the survival of the dollarand their access to these support instruments are subject to their good relations with the United States government.
We have already seen how they comply with the requests for censorship and freezing of the FBI and the Secret Service. What can Tether do if the government asks you to go beyond its current ethical standards? That freezes all user funds in Venezuela or Cuba, for example. Can you say no? Would I say it? If they refuse, would they close Usat? Would the State stop selling treasury bonds and other national instruments? In what position is it placed when the existence of your business, at least under its current constitution, would be affected? What would happen to a change of administration that requires even more extreme things?
While these open questions have not been answered in reality, they help to understand how USDT became a governmental. While Tether has earned the confidence of many for his noble actions in the industry, so close to the State could force them to betray their bitcoiners.
Thus, USDT would also become one more instrument for the use of money as a control system. I would not miss the possibility that KYC native to the currency came to impose, so the fight against censorship and favor access to financial services for the most needy populations could cease to be a reality.
For many bitcoiners, USDT served to access dollars when bank accounts were closed with Operation Chokepoint. It would be very ironic for the story to turn and that USDT also becomes an instrument of censorship, now that the bitcoiners gave him his trust and their funds.
All the above is applicable for any centralized stablcoineven more so if it complies with the provisions of Genius, which makes it a CBDC of the United States. The difference with USDT is that it has been close to the bitcoiners, but USDC also fits within what is described, as well as Pyusd, USDE and others.
Therefore, you have to be alert. Bitcoin was born precisely to fight political arbitrariness in money administration. While the USDT broadcast in Lightning, either through Taproot Assets or RGB, they give an alternative to users by making freezing more difficult due to the benefits of privacy and decentralization offered by these mechanisms, this could be a reason that forces Tether to abandon these projects that are barely born. Meanwhile, it seems that Tether only advances to greater symbiosis with the US government, which would make the company’s bitcoiners values die of success.