Tether CEO Rejects Senate Claims Over Iran-Linked USDT

On September 28, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino pushed back against a U.S. Senate subcommittee report accusing the stablecoin issuer of delaying freezes on wallets linked to Iran and its proxies. Ardoino said that since 2023 Tether has frozen addresses an average of four weeks before designations by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing, and before blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis labeled them in 99% of cases. The report, from Senator Richard Blumenthal and minority staff of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, examined 846 sanctioned or seizure-targeted wallets, found 84% used USDT almost exclusively, and cited delays involving 39 Hezbollah-linked wallets. Tether reported helping freeze nearly $550 million in Iran-linked USDT this year.