Cryptocurrency, which has billions of users around the world and tokens with a value as high as $60,000 as of the weekend, has gone from the posterboard for the future of currency to a springboard for fraud and corruption. The currency which has seen massive growth over the past decade and has thousands of coins spawned from the first mined blockchain bit has seesawed between the hope for digitization in developing countries and the catalyst that tempted companies to commit fraud totaling more than $42 million dollars.
Tether, which is the second known company being investigated by the SEC for defrauding investors, is also in the middle of an antitrust case that alleges that they and partner company BitFinex are both controlled by the same corporation. This comes on the tail of revelations that a previous cryptocurrency wallet exchange bilked investors as well as the news of an upcoming ETF for Bitcoin, the most profitable coin to date. As prices soar and economies remain in turmoil, there is no guarantee on when or where this new form of corruption will end.
