Tether is currently sitting at $.94 and falling.
Over the past year or so, Tether has come under tremendous scrutiny surrounding its use as a stable coin on many of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
Many of these exchanges do not have fiat on/off ramps, so Tether picked up the slack and has been used as a way for investors to hide out during bear markets or to transfer money from exchange to exchange.
That second use case is especially important on exchanges that are crypto only.
Some brief history:
Much of the rally of 2017 has been claimed to have been caused by manipulation tactics primarily involving tether.
The biggest one being, tethers possibly used to support bitcoin prices any time they appeared ready to crash.
Then, even more questions started to arise when tether and bitfinex announced that they were having trouble securing banking partners after their original banking partner parted ways.
This was also right around the time their auditor decided to dissolve their relationship with tether and bitfinex.
Eventually tether was able to secure a new banking partner and also provide account snapshots taken by an independent law firm claiming that tether was indeed backed by the dollars it claimed to be.
A move which partly put some fears to rest.
Fears are popping up again...
Just recently, rumors started swirling that tether and bitfinex are again facing troubles with their banking partner.
More about it can be found here:
https://www.ccn.com/tether-imploding-as-it-falls-4-an-important-step-toward-crypto-market-growth/
However, this time it appears to actually be affecting the tether market prices.
Over the past few days tether has broken its dollar peg to the downside and mostly remained there.
Early this morning, tether dipped as far down as $.92 and is currently trading around $.94.
While other USD stable coins like GUSD, PAX, and TUSD are all experiencing large inflows. Pushing them to trade at premiums to $1.
TUSD was trading around $1.08 at last check.
(Source: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/warning-signs-timeline-tether-and-bitfinex-events/)
Overall, this is likely very good news.
Tether has been shrouded in controversy for some time now and there is simply not enough transparency in a project like it that has that much affect on the entire crypto market.
Having tether lose its stranglehold on the stable coin market would be good news as money moves to other more transparent and regulated products.
Something that would help bring more confidence to investors and traders participating in the markets.
Which as we all know, confidence is something that tends to rule most investing market places.
So, while tether's demise may be looming, I for one think it would be a good thing for the entire crypto ecosystem if that were to be the case.
Stay informed my friends.
Image Source:
https://bitcoinist.com/250-million-tether-grant-here-we-go-again/
