Crypto Exchange Bitfinex Repaid $100 Million to Stablecoin Operator Tether

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex announced that it repaid $100 million of outstanding loan facility to stablecoin operator Tether in a post on its official blog on July 2.

Per the announcement, Bitfinex made the repayment via wire transfer to Tether’s bank account and the amount was not yet due to be paid to the operator under the facility. Still, the exchange reportedly made the decision to complete the prepayment based on its financial position at the end of the second quarter of 2019. The post concludes:

“Also on July 1st, Bitfinex fully prepaid all interest accrued under the loan facility to Tether up to the end of day on June 30, 2019, also in fiat.”

As Cointelegraph reported in May, the New York Supreme Court granted Bitfinex and Tether the stay of demands for which they applied on May 21. 

According to the original filing, Bitfinex never revealed a loss to investors and executives of the exchange and Tether engaged in a series of conflicting corporate transactions. With those transactions, Bitfinex allegedly got access to up to $900 million of Tether’s cash reserves and used them to hide their insolvency.

Bitfinex is accused of taking no less than $700 million from Tether’s reserves and using the funds to hide losses and inability to handle clients’ withdrawals.

More recently, Bitfinex announced a burn initiative for its LEO token, which will see the exchange’s parent company iFinex funnel its gross revenue into purchasing LEO tokens at market prices and then destroying them.