Loading ...It is described as being based in Germany, its gold operations are in Lugano, Switzerland, iFinex Inc is in the British Virgin Islands (and/or Hong Kong) and Tether International, S.A de C.V. is registered in El Salvador.
The last one is significant because Tether International (TI) is where all the action takes place. It issues the tokens (the Issuer) and controls the assets backing those tokens. The C.V. stands for capital variable, which means that the company can raise capital whenever it likes without having to issue a prospectus or anything. It is audited by the Milan branch of BDO (fifth largest accounting firm worldwide). Whoops!! It is not audited by BDO, because in the small print of IT’s website (and in the large print in BDO’s report) TI states”
“BDO Italia S.p.A. reports that its engagement procedures are conducted in accordance with criteria established by the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board for reasonable assurance engagements. This standard requires that it plan and perform the engagement to obtain reasonable assurance whether the relevant Reserves report is free from material misstatement. The reports are limited solely to the Reserves report and the corresponding total assets and total liabilities as of a specific date. Further information on procedures is contained in the Reserves reports.”
“reasonable assurance engagements” is definitely not an audit. It’s not even a review.
https://tether.to/ru/transparency/?tab=reports
Actually, having gone through this, why would you own Tether at all? It’s not an investment if it’s only ever worth $1. It says makes large profits, but nowhere can I find who owns iFinex, the parent company of TI. Who is benefitting from these billions of dollars?
Curiously El Salvador used to tax companies at 30% on global income. Since TI moved there, it only taxes companies on local profits (presumably there aren’t many El Salvadorian companies making much money outside the country), but as TI is based in ES, and makes its money from trading USTs, Bitcoin, Gold etc., all that would be local income?
So Tether appears to be a company, based in El Salvador, having its accounts assured by Italians, owned by a BVI company whose owners are unknown, making unverifiable billions of profits with unverifiable hundreds of billions of assets. And that’s without going down the rabbit holes of money laundering and other dubious activities that litter the internet.