When Will Stablecoins Truly Stabilize?
Written by: J1N, Techub News
I never expected that by 2025, the issues with stablecoins would still be ongoing.
In the evening, CoinDesk reported that TUSD faced a nearly $500 million shortfall due to its asset custodian, First Digital Trust, which is also the issuer of FDUSD, misappropriating its custodial assets. Following the report, concerns arose that the reserve assets of FDUSD might also be misappropriated, causing FDUSD to temporarily depeg to around 0.88 USDT. However, after denials from He Yi and First Digital Trust, FDUSD managed to recover from the significant depegging.
The Incident: TUSD's Massive Shortfall, Sun Yuchen Steps In
According to CoinDesk, citing informed sources, documents submitted by TUSD stablecoin operator Techteryx to the Hong Kong court indicated that after a nearly $500 million shortfall in TUSD's stablecoin reserves, Sun Yuchen provided funding in the form of a loan to cover the reserve gap.
Documents submitted by Techteryx to the Hong Kong court
In December 2020, Techteryx acquired TrueUSD from TrueCoin and authorized the Hong Kong-based custodian First Digital Trust (FDT) to manage its stablecoin reserves. Before Techteryx took full control of TUSD's operations in July 2023, TrueCoin was responsible for the daily operations of TUSD.
Documents from the U.S. law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel indicate that FDT was instructed to invest TUSD's reserves in the Cayman Islands-registered Aria Commodity Finance Fund (Aria CFF). However, court documents state that approximately $456 million was improperly transferred to Aria Commodities DMCC, an independent and unauthorized entity based in Dubai.
Cahill's documents submitted to the Department of Justice
Back to the main point, CoinDesk also mentioned that court documents show that Matthew Brittain, CEO of Aria Capital Management Ltd, controls the Aria Commodity Finance Fund (Aria CFF), while his wife, Cecilia Brittain, is the sole shareholder of the independent holding entity Aria Commodities DMCC based in Dubai. ARIA DMCC engages in trade financing, asset development, and commodity trading, while CFF provides financing to commodity traders, including DMCC and third parties.
Hong Kong court documents reveal that FDT's CEO Vincent Chok is suspected of paying approximately $15.5 million in undisclosed commissions to an entity called "Glass Door" and separately constructed about $15 million in unauthorized trade financing loans from FDT to Aria DMCC. This funding was invested by Aria DMCC in global projects such as manufacturing plants, mining operations, shipping vessels, port infrastructure, and renewable energy enterprises. FDT later defined the use of these funds as legitimate fund investments.
The plaintiffs claim that "FDT's remittances to Aria DMCC are blatant misappropriation of public funds and money laundering. These remittances were made without the plaintiffs' knowledge, authorization, or approval."
Techteryx attempted to redeem its investment funds from Aria CFF from mid-2022 to early 2023 without success, allegedly due to Aria entities defaulting on payments and failing to meet redemption requests. At that time, despite Techteryx losing $400 million in TUSD reserves, its team isolated this portion of assets to ensure the stablecoin redemption operations remained normal, and token holders were not affected. Sun Yuchen intervened at this time, providing emergency liquidity support for TUSD in the form of a loan.
Vincent Chok clarified that First Digital Trust acted as a custodian, strictly executing transactions according to Techteryx's instructions. He claimed that FDT was not involved in project evaluation and investment decisions. Vincent Chok stated, "To our knowledge, one of the main reasons ARIA refused Techteryx's redemption of investment funds was their concerns about AML/KYC regarding the transactions between TrueCoin and Techteryx, as well as concerns about the true identity of Techteryx's ultimate beneficial owners." At the same time, no one in the case would consider Aria to be lacking liquidity.
Aria Group CEO Matthew Brittain denied all "Techteryx's allegations against ARIA DMCC and any related entities," adding that "many false allegations have been made in the court litigation." Techteryx was fully aware of the commitments regarding the investment period, which were outlined in the contracts agreed upon by subscribers when investing in ARIA CFF and clearly listed in the offering memorandum. Matthew Brittain also agreed with Vincent Chok's concerns about Techteryx's actual ownership and pointed to previous reports by The Wall Street Journal regarding TrueCoin and TrustToken's alleged misappropriation of funds:
"In September 2024, TrueCoin and TrustToken (the former operators of TUSD) reached a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which accused them of falsely advertising that TrueUSD was fully backed by U.S. dollars while misappropriating reserves to invest in high-risk offshore funds. TrueCoin and TrustToken did not admit to any wrongdoing and did not detail the nature of the offshore investments made with Aria, but agreed to pay civil fines and forfeit over $500,000 in profits to resolve allegations of fraud and unregistered securities offerings."
Has First Digital Trust Gone Bankrupt? Official Denials from Both Parties
Shortly after the report was released, Sun Yuchen tweeted that First Digital Trust (FDT) had actually gone bankrupt and was unable to fulfill its obligations to redeem customer funds, strongly advising users to take immediate action to protect their assets and urging regulatory and law enforcement agencies to act swiftly to address these issues and prevent further significant losses. A press conference is scheduled for April 3 at 14:00 in Hong Kong.
This statement also caused FDUSD to temporarily depeg to around 0.88 USDT, with the BTC/FDUSD trading pair price soaring to nearly 100,000. FDUSD holders rushed to exit, reminiscent of the situation in 2022 when USDC depegged due to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Subsequently, He Yi tweeted to clarify that Sun Yuchen's lawsuit was regarding TUSD and not FDUSD, after which the FDUSD price quickly returned to around 0.99 USDT.
Meanwhile, First Digital Trust tweeted to deny Sun Yuchen's false accusations, stating that he was attempting to undermine FDUSD's position as a business competitor and that they would take legal action to protect their rights and reputation. They also announced a live AMA on X at 16:00 Hong Kong time on April 3 to respond to the matter.
Additionally, proof provided by Hong Kong accounting firm Moore CPA Limited shows that as of November 2024, FDT managed $501 million in reserves for TrueUSD. At the same time, First Digital released a reserve report for February indicating that the total reserve assets of First Digital amounted to $2,051,348,188.70, with an issuance of 2,041,924,819.94 FDUSD, meaning the reserve assets exceeded 100% coverage of the issued FDUSD, in compliance with the 1:1 reserve requirement.
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