[Wayne 962]

Continued...

To paint him entirely as a lightning rod for Tether brass wouldn’t be doing Hoegner justice, however.

Tether has at various points attempted to claim tens of millions of dollars as part of its backing reserve, which, in reality, were held in an account Hoegner’s name, not Tether’s. This was reported by Bloomberg in 2018 and was confirmed by the NYAG investigation, and took place in the era when each tether was supposed to be being backed 1:1 by U.S. currency.

Then there’s Hoegner’s own professional history, which includes a role as deputy general counsel and director of compliance for Excapsa, founders of online casino UltimateBet. Excapsa sold UltimateBet in 2006, but the site collapsed in 2008 when it was revealed that Excapsa employees were cheating on the platform, both pre-sale and post-sale. Excapsa’s general counsel, presumably Hoegner’s boss, was Daniel Freidberg. Friedberg has been implicated in the cheating scandal, and despite working on behalf of UltimateBet in the company’s sale, began working for the buyer almost immediately post-transaction, which seems to be a highly unsatisfactory conflict of interest. Nonetheless, nothing came of this.

There’s also Hoegner’s Medium post, which brazenly mischaracterizes the outcome of the NYAG investigation in much the same way that Tether’s press release at the time of the settlement did. Like his bosses, Hoegner knows that those who have supported Tether to this point will believe more or less whatever he tells them. This is why it’s possible for Hoegner to feel comfortable writing 1,400 words on Medium without acknowledging that the NYAG’s investigation found that tether has not always been backed, or Tether’s continued failure to provide a third-party audit of its reserves.

While it’s interesting to ponder Hoegner’s motivations, it ultimately doesn’t matter. The fact is that Tether regularly uses Hoegner to put a more credible gloss on the company’s ongoing campaign of deception and obfuscation regarding its reserves. Thanks to the likes of the New York Attorney General’s Office, Tether is rapidly running out of room to lie as the excuses become more and more feeble, as shown by Hoegner’s laughable attempt to spin the NYAG’s investigation and Tether’s latest non-proof into something that Twitter can grab a hold of.

What will be interesting to see is whether these pie charts are what Tether actually submitted to the NYAG in compliance with February’s settlement and if not, whether the real reserves breakdown will be ever see the light of day.