Four Men Control 86% of Tether Holdings — WSJ
A report by the Wall Street Journal has revealed that 86% of USDT’s parent company, Tether Holdings, is controlled by four men.
The inner workings of the most popular stablecoin Tether (USDT), have been the subject of speculation and discussions since its launch in 2014. Stories and accusations surrounding USDT have ranged from the stablecoin being at the heart of pumping Bitcoin to the parent company, Tether Holdings, operating on fractional reserves.
To date, none of the accusations and speculation against Tether and USDT has yielded concrete proof of financial malpractices. But that has not stopped the continuous queries into its operations, founders, management team and reserves backing USDT.
Tether’s Initial Founders were Two
Regarding Tether’s founders and shareholders, a new Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report claims that four men have controlled an estimated 86% of Tether Holdings for several years.
The report starts by pointing out that Tether and the Bitfinex crypto exchange share top executives who are also majority owners of the stablecoin company. Tether was the brainchild of former plastic surgeon Giancarlo Devasini and seasoned entrepreneur and crypto evangelist Brock Pierce.
Mr Pierce had also dabbled into acting, with his most recognisable role being of a young hockey player in ‘The Mighty Ducks’ movie. Before Bitcoin was launched, his earlier company, Internet Gaming Entertainment, handled digital currency from video games. The company would later be run by controversial political strategist Steve Bannon.
Four Men Control 86% of Tether Holdings — WSJ
Mr Devasini and Mr Pierce first incorporated Tether in the British Virgin Islands in September 2014. However, Mr Pierce soon left the company, and Mr Devasini has been its CFO since.
Mr Devasini helped develop Bitfinex and owned roughly 43% of Tether in 2018. The CEO of both Bitfinex and Tether, Jean-Louis van der Velde and the general counsel to both firms, Stuart Hoegner, each owned 15% of Tether in 2018.
When Bitfinex was hacked in 2016, Tether’s fourth majority owner stepped into the scene. Christopher Harbone, a businessman with dual British and Thai citizenship, came to own an estimated 12% of Tether. Mr Harbone was a big Bitfinex user, and the hack resulted in him receiving a large amount of the BFX tokens issued as IOU’s to the victims of the hack.
The WSJ journal report concluded that ‘the four men together owned roughly 86% of Tether through their own holdings and another related company.’
~By John P. Njui~
