(Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice is probing whether executives behind the Tether digital token committed bank fraud during the nascent stages of its cryptocurrency business, Bloomberg News reported on Monday
The probe is focusing on events from several years ago when Tether, a stablecoin launched in 2014, was in its early stages, the report said.
The agency is examining whether Tether concealed from banks that transactions were linked to crypto, the report added, citing three people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Tether and a spokesperson for the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The stablecoin universe is so far dominated by two main tokens, Tether and USD Coin. Tether is already more than 60% of the total stablecoins currently issued, worth about $100 billion.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru and Chris Prentice in Washington; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
