Amid ongoing legal proceedings, Bitfinex announces Tether loan repayment

A half-billion dollar loan has been closed out, but multiple court cases grind on

In a short statement today, Bitfinex — the sister company to centralized stablecoin Tether — announced that it has repaid Tether an outstanding loan balance of $550 million. This action fully closes out a larger $750 million loan from a $900 million credit line first issued in 2018 — a credit line which has been at the center of a market manipulation lawsuit in New York and a broader lawsuit from the New York Attorney General, among other legal proceedings. 

“Bitfinex is happy to announce that in January it repaid the remaining balance of $550,000,000 of the outstanding revolving loan facility to Tether,” wrote Stuart Hoegner, general counsel at Bitfinex. “Bitfinex made this payment in fiat currency wired to Tether’s bank account. All interest due on the loan has been paid. The loan has now been repaid early and in full and the line of credit has been cancelled.”

While the loan is repaid, legal action surrounding the loan continues to move forward. iFinex Inc. — the parent company of both Tether and Bitfinex — is facing multiple class-action lawsuits as a result of the loan which allege that the company issued unbacked Tether that was then used to manipulate the market.

The company is also facing scrutiny from the New York Attorney General. Last month iFinex requested that a trial date be pushed back so the company could produce documents requested by Office of the Attorney General — the second such delay the company has requested.

Despite iFinex’s legal troubles not going away anytime soon, Bitfinex and Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino seemed to take a victory lap on social media, poking fun at the community of “Tether truthers” who believe the stablecoin poses systemic risk to the crypto ecosystem:

Bitfinex did not respond to a request for comment before publication. 

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