Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether are becoming real hits in the narcotics business. Mexican drug lords prefer popular crypto tokens to fiat money to make payments in fentanyl trade, U.S. Treasury warns. The U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has issued an alert concerning the growing use of cryptocurrencies by Mexican cartels. Infamous drug traffickers are buying fentanyl ingredients with popular digital assets. The cartels are sourcing materials from Chinese suppliers. They are actively using Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, and Tether for those purchases. Which shouldn't come as a surprise, as these tokens are the most popular in the crypto world. Payments often land in hosted wallets at crypto firms. Some transactions involve secondary money transmitters. This trend isn't new to U.S. authorities. Recent sanctions and criminal cases have highlighted the issue. In October, the Justice Department charged eight China-linked companies. These firms faced allegations of illegal drug activities. The charges included production, distribution, and sales of precursor chemicals. Fentanyl overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-45. The drug's potency is alarming. It's 100 times stronger than morphine. China is a major source of fentanyl precursors. Later these chemicals travel through multiple countries. Their final destination in most cases is the United States.

A California nonprofit has begun a major advertising push to highlight concerns about Tether. Consumers' Protection is spending millions on TV ads, billboards, and digital outreach. The campaign centers on a 30-second TV spot. It asks: "Is Tether the next FTX?" The ad labels Tether the "go-to cryptocurrency for the world's worst." The nonprofit cites Tether's lack of a full audit as a key issue. This mirrors criticisms of FTX before its collapse. Billboards will appear in high-profile locations. These include Times Square in New York and mobile displays in Washington, DC. A new website accompanies the campaign. It features stark visuals and links to critical media coverage of Tether. The effort underscores stablecoins' growing prominence. Will Hild, executive director of Consumers' Protection, stated: "Consumers should be weary [sic] of any so-called stablecoin that refuses to properly certify that they actually hold the assets they claim." Research suggests limited consumer use of stablecoins currently. Bloomberg reported in May that less than 10% of stablecoin transactions involve "real people." Tether is pushing into the consumer market. It launched a Telegram-based mobile app in May. PayPal's new PYUSD stablecoin also targets consumers. Regulatory challenges loom for Tether, some crypto exchanges are delisting USDT ahead of new EU rules. Consumers' Protection, founded in 1929, is a US nonprofit. It receives backing from religious and conservative groups. The organization runs other campaigns on issues like ESG investing and corporate "wokeness."

Tether unveiled a new stablecoin which is pegged to U.S. Dollar. But has a peculiar difference from the existing - and extremely popular - USDT. The new token is called Alloy (aUSDT) and it is backed by overcollateralized gold reserves rather than government debt. Tether released a very pompous statement on the subject. “aUSDT unifies the most popular currency in the world with the store of value used by humanity for the last 5,000 years,” the company wrote on X. Tether claims that gold-backed currencies were "historically strong". They always helped to reduce inflation and sustain steady economic growth. As for Alloy (aUSDT), Tether claims it is going to be a super reliable token. Firstly, because it is overcollateralized, which means it is backed by value that exceeds the number of tokens in circulation. it creates a kind of a buffer zone for price bumps. For instance, if gold suddenly starts falling down in price, the stablecoin might lose its dollar peg. But, hopefully, that is not possible if all the investors know that aUSDT is overcollateralized, and Tether always has enough resources to back it. What's more interesting, aUSDT is not backed by gold. Tether decided to use another of its assets, Tether Gold (XAUT), as a backup. XAUT is a popular token pegged to and backed by one troy ounce of gold. So it's the excessive holdings of XAUT that are backing aUSDT, not real gold. XAUT has a good standing on the market. Its market cap is over $574 million now, which makes it the largest gold-pegged stablecoin at the moment. Paxos's PAXG is following closely with $428 million.

Tether Co-Founder predicts next ETFs after Bitcoin and Ethereum. He claims that Wall Street is too greedy to stop. And that is not so good for crypto. William Quigley told Decrypt this week that he doesn't expect crypto ETF momentum to slow after the approvals of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum funds. According to Quigley, Wall Street's “greed” will bring more and more such products. He named Solana and Cardano as possible next ETFs installations. They will be driven by Wall Street's relentless pursuit of profit. “Every time Wall Street packages a new product to sell to consumers, if that product is successful, you can guarantee there will be copycats. There would be no ETFs if the Bitcoin ETF had failed,” Quigley said. His comments were overall less than flattering for Wall Street guys. They just love 'the next hot thing' because it is easy to sell it to consumers. Once there is a big pullback the trend will lose momentum, Quigley thinks. ETFs are considered to be a true milestone in the history of crypto. Basically, they allow investors to gain profits from Bitcoin without actually holding any crypto. That is as safe and convenient as buying shares of NYSE companies. With recent SEC statements, their is very little doubt that Ethereum ETFs will be approved this summer. Now rumours spread that Solana ETFs are on horizons. So Quigley might be right about the overall trend. Why is Quigley so angry with ETFs? Well, obviously Tether co-founder isn't excited with crypto mainstream adoption because of the increasing involvement of traditional finance in the decentralized space. One of the questions he asks is what is actually going to happen when in time of downturn - and those are inevitable on the crypto market - Wall Street investors will simply pull out. That would be a risk factor that is new for crypto world, and absolutely unpredictable. "I was happy with crypto without Wall Street,” Quigley summarized.

Bitcoin is the only decentralized currency, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino says in a startling revelation. According to the man, who is in charge of the most influential stablecoin, Bitcoin is unique among the more than 14,000 various cryptocurrencies because it is the only one that is not centralized. An unexpected - if not to say sensational - statement was made by Ardoino during his interview with Cointelegraph. “Bitcoin is the only example of a currency that is only ruled by math that basically cannot be changed,” Ardoino stated. He added that some some cryptocurrencies are a bit more centralized or others are a bit less centralized, yet Bitcoin is the one that is not contolled by anyone in particular. “With the other currencies, you see that there is a group of developers that come every month. They are coming out with a new software release, they change the monetary policy, inflationary, deflationary, and they keep changing things,” Ardoin explained. But no substantial changes can be made to Bitcoin blockchain. There will always be no more than 21 million Bitcoin. And there will be a halving, which affects mining profits once every four years, until all 21 million bitcoins are mined, Ardoino stated. “Bitcoin is about certainty. It’s like a clock keeps ticking keeps ticking forever [...] When it comes to the concept of unstoppable products, or decentralized — because everyone uses the term ‘decentralized’ — there is only Bitcoin,” Tether CEO concluded. To Ardoino's credit, he openly admitted that Tether is centralized, unlike Bitcoin. He also stated that his opinion on Bitcoin's exclusive level of decentralization “might be controversial.” It's not often that we get to see such examples of candour from executive managers in the cryptocurrency market.