In a short statement today, Bitfinex — the sister company to
centralized stablecoin Tether — announced that it has repaid Tether an
outstanding loan balance of $550 million. This action fully closes out a
larger $750 million loan from a $900 million credit line first issued
in 2018 — a credit line which has been at the center of a market manipulation lawsuit in New York and a broader lawsuit from the New York Attorney General, among other legal proceedings.
“Bitfinex
is happy to announce that in January it repaid the remaining balance of
$550,000,000 of the outstanding revolving loan facility to Tether,” wrote
Stuart Hoegner, general counsel at Bitfinex. “Bitfinex made this
payment in fiat currency wired to Tether's bank account. All interest
due on the loan has been paid. The loan has now been repaid early and in
full and the line of credit has been cancelled.”
While the loan
is repaid, legal action surrounding the loan continues to move forward.
iFinex Inc. — the parent company of both Tether and Bitfinex — is facing
multiple class-action lawsuits as a result of the loan which allege
that the company issued unbacked Tether that was then used to manipulate the market.
The
company is also facing scrutiny from the New York Attorney General.
Last month iFinex requested that a trial date be pushed back so the
company could produce documents requested by Office of the Attorney General — the second such delay the company has requested.
Despite
iFinex’s legal troubles not going away anytime soon, Bitfinex and
Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino seemed to take a victory lap on social media,
poking fun at the community of “Tether truthers” who believe the stablecoin poses systemic risk to the crypto ecosystem:
source link : https://cointelegraph.com/news/amid-ongoing-legal-proceedings-bitfinex-announces-tether-loan-repayment
