In an abrupt turn of events, Tether said that it had frozen 46 million USDT that belonged to the failing cryptocurrency exchange FTX. According to a Tether spokesman, the USDT freeze was implemented in response to a request from law enforcement. After CZ, the CEO of Binance, backed out of the acquisition agreement, the FTX exchange is now facing bankruptcy. As time passes and uncertainty around the Sam Bankman-Fried crypto empire persists, cryptocurrency prices keep falling more.
SEC Investigation Regarding FTX Meltdown
The US SEC is currently looking into how FTX US handled its customers' money, on the other hand. In a recent development, SEC head Gary Gensler stated that investor safety was necessary in the cryptocurrency market. He did note that when crypto firms trade with one another, it is taking time to gather proof. In an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Gensler made the remarks.
A Tether executive was quoted by Coindesk as saying:
“We are starting to receive requests from law enforcement to temporarily freeze assets while investigation occur.”
In a recent development, the Financial Services Agency of Japan ordered FTX to cease operations. Additionally, until December 9, 2022, onboarding of new clients was to cease.
Concerns were also expressed about the price of Tether (USDT), which had lost its tie to the value of $1. The USDT price briefly dropped to $0.982, but it quickly rose to about $1. The USDT stablecoin price is $0.9976 as of this writing, down 0.13% over the previous 24 hours, according to market monitoring site CoinMarketCap.
