Tether and Bitfinex are pleased to have reached a settlement of legal proceedings with the New York Attorney General’s Office. Under the terms of the settlement, we admit no wrongdoing. The settlement amount we have agreed to pay to the Attorney General’s Office should be viewed as a measure of our desire to put this matter behind us and focus on our business.

Over the past two and a half years, we worked in full cooperation with the Attorney General’s Office and provided more than 2.5 million pages of documentation to answer their questions and bring this matter to a close.

The settlement resolves allegations about public disclosures related to a loan Tether made to Bitfinex when Bitfinex was encountering challenges accessing approximately US$850 million in Bitfinex funds held by a payment processor in 2018. These events are by now well known.

The loan was made to ensure continuity for Bitfinex’s customers. It has since been repaid early and in full, including interest. At no point did the loan impact Tether’s ability to process redemptions.

The Attorney General’s Office concluded, in essence, that we could have done better in publicly disclosing these events. Contrary to online speculation, after two and half years there was no finding that Tether ever issued Tether tokens without backing, or to manipulate crypto prices.

Putting aside the Attorney General’s characterization of these disclosure issues as misrepresentations or violations of any legal obligation, we share the Attorney General’s goal of increasing transparency. For that reason, last year we voluntarily provided the Attorney General with information about the composition of Tether’s reserves, and we proposed that as part of the settlement agreement, we would disclose—both to the Attorney General’s office and to the public—additional information about Tether’s reserves. We do not make this commitment reluctantly; we embrace it.

We are pleased that our customers have shown loyalty and commitment to our businesses over the past two years, while this investigation was ongoing. The market capitalization of Tether tokens has grown from US$2 billion to in excess of US$34 billion over that time period, and Bitfinex has seen dramatic growth, as well, particularly this year. We look forward to both companies continuing to lead the industry and serve our customers.

We wish to thank the personnel at the New York Attorney General’s Office for their cooperation and professionalism.