On September 13, the Wall Street Journal published an article stating that Tether (USDT) is undermining the United States' fight against arms dealers, sanctions breakers and scammers. In 2023, the amount of money flowing through the Tether network was almost as much as that through Visa cards, with a full-year net profit of $6.2 billion, surpassing the asset management giant BlackRock (common shareholders' net profit of $5.5 billion), but Tether's number of employees (less than 100) is only a small fraction of BlackRock's.
The Wall Street Journal stated that although Tether will review the identity of direct customers, its huge secondary market is unregulated. According to a report by the United Nations in January this year, USDT is the "first choice" for money laundering in Southeast Asia. Tether can track every transaction on the public blockchain ledger and can freeze and destroy USDT in any wallet.
