Showing posts with label tether. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tether. Show all posts

Tether Reaches a New High of 100 BILLION USDT Coins in Circulation...

Tether USDT Coins Cryptocurrecy

The USDT (Tether) stablecoin, issued by the Tether company, has exceeded $100 billion in market capitalization for the first time ever.

While used on many blockchains, the Ethereum and Tron blockchains account for 99% of the total supply. 

This achievement not only reinforces USDT's position as the leading stablecoim , but also widens its lead over its main competitor, Circle's USDC , which currently boasts a market capitalization of just $28 billion. 

Tether Says Every USDT Token is Backed 1:1 with the US Dollar - This Was Once a Controversial Claim... 

"A few years ago there were major issues with Tether withholding information and putting off 3rd party audits, all while consistently minting millions of new tokens as they grew. Concerns that Tether had secrets that could crash the market were voiced by dozens of established industry members...."  says Global Crypto Press Association editor Ross Davis "Now this part is just my opinion, but I think these concerns were true at one point, but Tether managed to avoid the issue long enough that with their continued growth, they had the time and money to fix the problem."

Tether now undergoes 3rd party auditing, and publicly shares their treasury holdings on their website. Currently, Tether has $5 Billion more in assets than they have in liabilities.

A Bullish Signal...

More USDT being issued it considered a bullish indicator, showing increased intention to invest in the crypto market - there's really no reason to have USDT unless you plan to turn that into some other coin.

- Miles Monroe
Washington DC Newsroom / GlobalCryptoPress.com

Tether (USDT) and Their Aggressive Plan to ACCUMULATE More BITCOIN...

Tether BTC

Tether International Limited, the company behind the widely popular stablecoin USDT, dropped a (good) bombshell today by revealing its new bitcoin (BTC) investment game plan.

In a bold move, the company declared that it would allocate 15% of its profits to accumulate more bitcoin. They're not messing around when it comes to their reserve portfolio, which contains precious metals, fiat currencies, treasury bills, money market funds and crypto.

Their most recent independent audit report showed the company with a little over $79 Billion in liabilities, but owning almost $82 billion in assets.

These Bitcoin buys won't be used to back USDT, on that front they're overcollateralized...

This is Tether flexing its financial muscles and going beyond what anyone had demanded of them by beefing up their reserves.

By the end of Q1 2023, Tether already had a cool $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin stashed away. That's a modest 2% of their reserves, though. Gold clocked in at 4%, while a hefty 85% was chilling in cold hard cash and other assets. But Tether's not satisfied with those numbers, they're thirsty for more.

Tether also announced that unlike most institutional investors who let other companies store and safeguard their bitcoins, Tether takes the "not your keys, not your bitcoin" mantra to heart. They'll be be handling their own custody. 

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Author: Justin Derbek
New York News Desk
Breaking Crypto News

Bitfinex fires back, claims NY Attorney General lying - $850 million not lost, it was wrongfully seized!

The story has been developing over the last 24hrs, and began with a press release and Fortune publishing the NY Attorney General's claims that Bitfinex used "illicit transactions to mask $850 million in missing funds."

Those illicit transactions, they claim, were in the form of their stablecoin 'Tether', and Bitfinex had dipped into reserves and used those funds to fill in the gaps left by the missing $850 million.

Now, Bitfinex has weighed in - clearly angered by the situation, saying the Attorney General's claims are "riddled with false assertions".

Bitfinex asserts the funds aren't missing at all, they're being withheld, stating that "these Crypto Capital amounts are not lost but have been, in fact, seized and safeguarded. We are and have been actively working to exercise our rights and remedies and get those funds released."

But why would the NY Attorney General do this? They say it's because of the recent probe into cryptocurrency exchanges being conducted by the Attorney General's office, which some say overstepped authority by demanding documents without reasonable suspicion. The probe includes all of the top exchanges, Coinbase, Gemini, bitFlyer, Bitstamp, Kraken, Bittrex, Poloniex, Binance, Tidex, Gate.io, itBit, Huobi, and of course, Bitfinex, which apparently did not hand over all of the data requested.

But who is withholding this massive sum of Bitfinex's funds? They won't say, and expressed frustration that they're being targeted instead of assisted in the quest to get them returned, saying "The New York Attorney General’s office should focus its efforts on trying to aid and support our recovery efforts."

They also insist, customers have nothing to fear, promising that "Bitfinex and Tether are financially strong" and that they are "good corporate citizens and strong supporters of law enforcement."

It's hard to predict how this will end, Bitfinex has repeatedly found themselves at the center of accusations that seem to fade away, never concluding with clear proof of their innocence or guilt.

It appears they've structured their business to be deliberately difficult to track from the outside. That's brought about critics who say those are the actions of a company with dark secrets, and defenders who say it's a smart move to prevent funds being seized in the case of sudden government overreach. 

It's common practice for exchanges with international clients to have funds held around the globe, instead if having to trust all of those governments, it can be easier to trust none of them and try to keep things as under-wraps as possible.

But that's why this time is different - their defense isn't 'we don't release that information to protect funds from being seized' - they're saying 'the funds have been seized'.

This time, they can't withhold the specifics - there's no end that doesn't involve releasing the records in question, or the Attorney General's accusations proven.

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Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk

Following a blow from Binance, Tether swings back saying anyone who wants to exchange Tether for USD can - directly through them.

Binance has replaced the "USDT" symbol on their exchange - it no longer means Tether, but rather a symbol that represents their entire stablecoin market, a collection of multiple stablecoins.

Our readers were the first to see this coming, when an insider within one of the stablecoin projects leaked exclusive information with us regarding the discussions between their leadership and Binance (read that article here).

Well - it all turned out to be true, a new statement from Binance reads:

"Binance has renamed the USDT Market (USDT) to now be a combined Stablecoin Market (USDⓈ). This is to support more trading pairs with different stablecoins offered as a base pair.

 We will make a further announcement soon on the exact pairs to be initially moved or added to this market.

 Please note that USDⓈ is not a new stablecoin: it is the symbol of Binance's new stablecoin market."

What's interesting here is this at least appears on the surface to be a real jab at Tether, for the simple fact that "USDT" is their symbol, they trade under on every exchange where it's used - and Binance basically just said 'sorry, not anymore'.

But today - Tether just swung back.  Re-opening their "Direct redemption"portal that allows anyone to buy Tether using USD or Euro, and more importantly - exchange Tether for fiat currency.    In a statement Tether says:

"Due to the unexpected rush of new cryptocurrency traders over the last year, Tether grew at an unpredicted rate, quickly making the initial model (enabling direct redemption of Tether to fiat through its native platform) unsustainable. In this environment, it made sense to take the stress off growing pains by flexing the existing model to harness the established infrastructure and security of Bitfinex, which was built to withstand a much larger volume of customers. Those wishing to redeem could do so 1:1 via Bitfinex with whom we had a business to business relationship.

 Against this backdrop and with alternative stablecoins entering the market, Tether has maintained its stablecoin market domination, but naturally differentiated, with heavy adoption amongst professional investors.

 Now, thanks to stronger banking as a result of our new relationship with Deltec, Tether is able to return to its original vision of having a wallet for creating and redeeming directly on its own platform without having to rely on a third party. This update allows the immediate withdrawal of Tether to fiat (1:1), with the ability to acquire coming soon."

This is Tether saying "we have the money".  But as one person in a telegram channel i'm a member of stated "we'll see" because for many, the mistrust of Tether will continue, adding "they could be offering this knowing not everyone is going to exchange their Tether for USD at once. Smart way to look legit, but we still have no idea what their real USD reserves are".
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Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk

Tether is officially under investigation... but what if they're totally INNOCENT?

First off - don't even try to imply we're shilling for Tether.  In fact we're one of the first publications to touch the accusations against them - ironically one year ago today exactly (link) and in over 5 follow-up articles on the subject. 

Our stance is - just do the audit and put all this to rest already, and the longer they go without it, the more suspicious they look.  For that reason, Tether has largely brought this upon themselves.

But now with the news today of the the DOJ officially investigating them, and having already covered the accusations against them to death - let's examine another angle.

What if they're innocent?

Whether the accusations turn out to be true or not the fact is it took a year of non-stop bad press before an investigation was even launched.  Frankly, the reason for that is - it just isn't totally clear anything even happened.

On that note, here's a few factors worth considering:

Bitfinex isn't even in the top 3 exchanges that hold the most Tether.

Binance, Huobi, Poloniex, then Bitfinex in 4th place when it comes to who holds the most USDT.

The upside to these exchanges listing a USDT pairing option is obviously the more trades they get people to execute, the more trading fees they get to claim.  But there's no way the profits from these fees justify risking their entire business by working with Tether.

There's no doubt these exchanges looked into Tether as soon as the accusations against it surfaced - yet a year later, they're still using it.

The 'risk VS reward' for these exchanges just doesn't add up.

One of those exchanges is Binance, the world's top exchange.

Binance and specifically it's CEO are known for having very little tolerance for nonsense, and on the topic of Tether, CEO Changpeng Zhao (aka "CZ" in the crypto world) says:

“I haven’t personally seen their bank accounts but from a logical point of view they have so many profits from their regular exchange business, they don’t need to do anything crazy about the Tethering. I think the reason they cannot release their bank account details is because if they release whichever bank they’re using, then the bank account gets shut down” 

Could the explanation really be this simple?

Binance is also known for de-listing coins, and doing it fast - at the first sign of trouble. Yet Tether is still there.

Anonymous accusers.

At the root of the accusations against Tether are tweets and posts on Medium (a blog site anyone can post on) that then went viral.

Why not add validity to the claims by telling everyone who's making them?   There's no fear of legal repercussions against someone making truthful claims.

Did the price of Bitcoin REALLY need to be artificially pumped up?

Think back to when things got crazy beginning late 2017.  Among the people in my life who contacted me to say they just bought, or wanted help buying cryptocurrency were college friends I hadn't talked to in years, a friend of mine who's a radio DJ, another friend who's a professional swimming coach, another one who teaches 2nd grade elementary school - the list goes on.

Point is - everyone actually was buying Bitcoin, that wasn't in our imagination.

So in closing , sure, the accusations very well may be true and i'd even say there's a 'good chance' they are.

But... there's also a 'good chance' they aren't.

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Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk