Tether is answering back against a report issued last month by Democrats on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that had accused the stablecoin firm of providing "a significant financial lifeline within Iran's shadow banking network," with Tether CEO Paulo Ardoino saying Monday that the probe missed the positive work it's doing to observe sanctions.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, the subcommittee's top Democrat, led the effort, which further highlighted Democratic lawmakers' concerns that crypto is used to support illicit finance. But Ardoino contends that Tether freezes suspicious transactions well before entities such as the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control and Israel's National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing formally flag them.

"Senator Blumenthal's 'analysis' of Tether's sanctions report misses that, since 2023, Tether froze on average 4 weeks prior to OFAC & NBCTF official sanction designation and for 99% of the times Tether froze the reported addresses before Chainalysis labelled them," Ardoino wrote in a post on social media site X.

Ardoino went on to argue that the company's actions "led to Iran-linked stablecoin volumes declining by 94%."

Tether's CEO also spoke remotely at a Washington event, DC Fintech Week, and addressed the senator's report there, as well, last Tuesday. He criticized how it was released to the media before his company could review it.

"I believe it's important for the public also to hear our side of the story," he said.

"Our aim is to push out the bad actors from USDT," Ardoino said.

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