Cryptocurrency enthusiasts all over the world are concerned about Tether. With millions of new tokens issued every other day, there is a serious risk of price manipulation. In most cases, people look at this from a Bitcoin perspective. However, there are a fair few altcoins traded against USDT as well. Unsurprisingly, most of these coins have seen recent mini or mega pumps.
It is difficult to explain why Tether’s USDT is such a problem right now. The company has issued close to 300m tokens over the past seven days. A staggering amount, to say the least. Assuming they also have $300m in reserve assets, that isn’t a big problem. We won’t know for sure until early next year if that is the case. There have been some rumors regarding this token being used to prop up the Bitcoin price as of late.
USDT is a Growing Concern in Cryptocurrency
Whether or not that is true, remains to be determined. It is true Tether issues more USDT when the Bitcoin price dips. However, none of the top trading markets for Bitcoin are in USDT right now. There is still a decent amount of trading going on with USDT in the Bitcoin department, though HitBTC, Huobi, and Bitfinex are the main places for these trading markets. However, this Tether currency is also making inroads in the altcoin department lately.
To put this into perspective, USDT is used on Poloniex, Bittrex, Huobi, HitBTC, ZB, and Binance as the main platforms. One can trade USDT against Bitcoin Cash, NEO, Ethereum, OMG, Litecoin, and Dash. All of these currencies have seen recent price pumps without apparent reason. It is difficult to say if there is any correlation with the ongoing token issuance by Tether. However, there are some things which seemingly don’t add up right now.
It is unclear what the future holds for USDT, that much is evident. A lot of people consider Tether to be pretty dangerous. They keep issuing money – like a central bank – at an alarming rate. There is almost $1bn USDT in circulation at this time. For a currency pegged to the US Dollar, Tether is either very popular or extremely shady. Right now, both options are still on the table. An interesting debacle to keep an eye on, that much is certain.
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