Tether Calls Market Manipulation Allegations 'Reckless and False'

Once again, Tether has ridiculed and dismissed allegations that it used its USDT stablecoin for manipulating Bitcoin's price.

"The allegations in the complaint are without merit or legal basis, and exhibit a fundamental lack of understanding of the market structure of cryptocurrencies. Indeed, it is reckless and false to allege that USDT tokens are issued in order to manipulate markets."

Many of the accusations regarding Tether's purported price manipulation are based on the academic paper "Is Bitcoin Really Un-tethered?" by John M. Griffin and Amin Shams which was first published in June 2018.

The paper stated that Tether in?uenced Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices during the 2017 boom.

"These now amalgamated copycat lawsuits are baseless and rely on a foundationally flawed paper by John M. Griffin and Amin Shams that lacks data and evidence to support incendiary allegations. Sadly, the claims are nothing more than a shameless money grab."

On Monday, Roche Cyrulnik Freedman LLP was appointed as the lead counsel for plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit after several different legal teams fought for the role.

The cryptocurrency community paid close attention to the fight between the law firms, with Bitcoin influencer Andreas Antonopoulos recently expressing support for one of the legal teams.

"Whoever serves as lead interim counsel is irrelevant, as the claim rests on the defective research and methodology of a paper whose authors openly admit they do not have crucial data to prove actual purchases of bitcoin with Tether."