One of the most common market manipulation accusations against Bitcoin was related to the "loose canon" named Tether.

For those of you not knowing what Tether is, well, it's a hard pegged crypto-currency which aims to be a "stablecoin" (like SBD on the STEEM blockchain). Instead of buying Bitcoin directly with USD, you first buy Tether with USD and then buy Bitcoin with Tether. All major crypto exchanges are using Tether-based trading pairs.

The biggest point against Tether was the fact that it wasn't properly audited. In other words, the amount of circulating Tether couldn't be officially matched to some real US Dollar reserve somewhere (that would enforce the 1 to 1 peg). That led to all kind of speculations about the real amount of Tether out there and, subsequently, about the real price of Bitcoin.

Well, those days are over, because as of yesterday, there is a new "stablecoin" in town: GUSD. It literally means "Gemini US Dollar" and it was issued by the Winklevoss' brothers Gemini exchange. It's an ERC20 token - meaning it lives on the Ethereum blockchain - and, most importantly, seems to be properly audited.

Here's the most important excerpt from the launch announcement:

The U.S dollars that correspond to the Gemini dollars issued and in circulation will be held at a bank located in the United States and eligible for FDIC “pass-through” deposit insurance, subject to applicable limitations. In addition, the U.S dollar deposit balance will be examined monthly by an independent registered public accounting firm to verify the 1:1 peg.

In my humble opinion, this is the biggest bullish news that the markets could receive (in the absence of an approved Bitcoin ETF, that is).

Obviously, the markets didn't price this in, but I expect relevant moves very soon.

I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me Hive account@dragosroua.

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