MANIPULATION ACCUSATION
In 2018, Tether (USDT) has been accused of manipulating Bitcoin's price and causing the astronomical rise to $20,000
This accusation came from a University of Texas research paper in which the researchers used 87 examples of the largest Tether issuances from March 2017 to March 2018
In that research, the team found that although Tether accounted for "less than 1 percent of the time period examined, they amounted to about 50 percent of Bitcoin’s compounded return over that year"
THE TURN TO ALTCOINS :
Many who claim Tether is involved in Bitcoin price manipulation also claim that altcoins can be affected too
According the Chainalysis, Tether issuances last year were linked to Bitcoin price pumps 85% of the time
However, when prices crashed in January, that correlation fell by around 93%
In contrast, EOS and NEO still maintained a high correlation to Tether issuances from January to June
NOWHERE TO BE SEEN:
Now, however, Bloomberg released an article detailing the research findings of Chainalysis and shows that Tether hasn't had a significant impact on the price of Bitcoin or EOS and NEO in August
Even though over $500 million in new Tether tokens were issued in August, Bitcoin has still managed to drop around 11% on the month, EOS down 31%, and NEO down 41%
This is an interesting finding since it seems Tether issuances have lost impact on the market