Tether, a leading stablecoin issuer, is currently under investigation by the US government, according to a Friday report in the Wall Street Journal.
The investigation aims to determine whether Tether violated anti-money laundering rules and sanctions.
The report states that stablecoin issuers have been targeted by the Treasury Department for “extensive” sanctions violations. Americans could be banned from doing business with Tether.
Following this report, the price of Bitcoin plummeted and is currently trading at $65,971 on the Bitstamp exchange. It has fallen more than 3% in the past 24 hours.
BTC/USD by TradingView.com
“Old noise”
That said, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino denied there is an ongoing federal investigation into the company.
“As we told the Journal, there is no indication that Tether is under investigation. The Journal is regurgitating the same old noise. It’s a complete stop.”
Of course, Tether’s USDT is the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. According to CoinGecko data, the company’s market capitalization currently stands at $120.1 billion.