Tether's Ardoino disputes Blumenthal report on Iran sanctions timing

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino rejected Senator Richard Blumenthal’s findings on Iran compliance, saying on X that Tether froze flagged addresses an average of four weeks before the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing designated them. Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, released a Sept. 28 report finding 84% of 846 sanctioned or flagged crypto wallets tied to Iran and its proxies moved money mainly in USDT, the stablecoin Tether issues. He asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Todd Blanche to investigate possible sanctions and anti-money-laundering violations; the report cited 39 addresses linked to a Hezbollah money launderer, with 34 left untouched until March 2024.