- NEAR Foundation CEO Illia Polosukhin denied Wintermute’s request to exchange 11.2 million USN stablecoins for USDT.
- NEAR suspected that the acquired USN tokens may have questionable origins and potential ties to illegal activities.
- Illia Polosukhin, the new CEO of NEAR Foundation, took on the role to guide the organization’s growth and coordination.
NEAR Foundation CEO Illia Polosukhin revealed that the organization had denied a request from crypto market maker Wintermute to exchange 11.2 million USN stablecoins for USDT.
The revelation was first reported by Chinese journalist Colin Wu. In a tweet, Wu stated that Polosukhin had flagged the acquired USN tokens as likely originating from questionable sources and potentially tied to illegal activities. As such, NEAR rejected the proposed swap to avoid effectively laundering the funds.
Wintermute had reportedly obtained the sizable stash of USN from the Alameda Research bankruptcy estate and sought to profit via arbitrage from exchanging them for the more liquid USDT. However, NEAR evaluated the origin of the tokens as dubious and refused to validate the attempted trade.
The decision comes on the heels of Polosukhin’s appointment as CEO of the NEAR Foundation. Polosukhin took on the new role to guide the next phase of growth and coordination across NEAR teams working towards a shared vision of an open web.
“I’m honored and excited to officially join the NEAR Foundation and continue working together with the ecosystem to build towards our shared vision of an open web,” said Illia Polosukhin about his new role.
Polosukhin shared his perspective on NEAR’s commitment to refining the coordination of its decentralized ecosystem. He believes that this upcoming phase in their evolution will enhance the speed of vertical development and promote more efficient collaboration.
NEAR also mentioned in the announcement that to help ensure the ecosystem nodes building this open web vision are coordinating effectively, Chris Donovan will be stepping into the position of NEAR Foundation COO to oversee day-to-day operations while also remaining on the Foundation Council.
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