CoinDesk has sought to intervene in this proceeding in an effort to re-write the agreement between the New York Attorney General’s Office (OAG) and Tether and Bitfinex. We have made public the information required, and even gone above and beyond the agreement’s terms by providing quarterly assurance opinions from an independent accountant concerning Tether’s reserves and details on the ratings of its investments. Tether is proud to be an industry leader in transparency.
But the agreement with OAG did not call for proprietary details provided privately to OAG to be made public; no company in a competitive marketplace would have agreed to that. For that reason, OAG’s Records Access Officer initially agreed with Tether and Bitfinex that the information at issue in the proceedings should remain private. Yet, without any meaningful explanation, an OAG Appeals Officer came to the polar opposite conclusion.
It is worth noting that CoinDesk and Circle, the issuer of USDC and a Tether competitor, share an investor: Digital Currency Group. CoinDesk’s coverage of its legal papers does not alert readers to this glaring conflict of interest. Weaponizing the media does a disservice to the ecosystem. Tether welcomes healthy competition in the space but not when others do so without truth, honour, and respect.
Tether frequently collaborates with regulators and law enforcement to protect the cryptocurrency ecosystem, return property to injured parties, and further legitimate governmental objectives. We have been forthcoming with requests for transparency and documentation as to the composition of Tether’s reserves. Further disclosure of the information shared by Tether beyond the OAG will harm Tether’s competitive position in the marketplace and unnecessarily and unduly invade the privacy of third parties.
As a private company, Tether maintains certain proprietary details about its operations to protect its competitive advantage as a leader in the industry.
As we have said before, we look forward to a judicial determination of this matter by the New York Supreme Court.
