Tether Releases Tokens Worth $415 Billion in August

By Sumedha Bose

BTC Wires: Tether, a crypto company that has always been somewhat controversial, has managed to release $415 million in new tokens this month alone. Subsequently, the stablecoin has had a meteoric rise to number eight on the list of rankings for crypto coins based on market cap. Last week, it had been reported that Tether had issued enough tokens to value almost $200 million in August. Clearly, the company has continued its epic dream run and how! Saturday saw the firm issue 20 million USDTs which catapulted the total figure to $415 million by the time Monday ended.

Currently, Tether is enjoying a market cap of $2.7 billion. This is an unprecedented high for the token which is officially the eighth most valuable on the list. In addition, it can also claim to have had the highest trading volume out of all cryptocurrencies except bitcoin. Over the last one day, about $2.6 billion in USDT has been circulated and exchanged between crypto traders and users, propelling the total volume-to-market ratio to a rather satisfactory figure of 95 per cent.

USDT’s “Rich List” also tells us that the Tether Treasury already currently has tethers worth a whopping $251 million which have not been released into the market despite having received the authorization required to issue them.

Tether, originally called the USDT token is one of the best-known stablecoins in the crypto industry. Stablecoins usually have their values in relation to a stable asset, in this case the US dollar. They are often used as proxies for the USD on crypto exchanges because a lot of start-ups fail to secure adequate backing from banks to be able to directly list the concerned fiat trading pair. Usually every USDT token must be backed by an actual dollar held by the bank account of the issuing company. However, despite claiming to be holding the requisite dollar reserves, Tether has refused to undergo a full audit to reveal what the situation really is, citing the supposed refusal of mainstream auditors to work with crypto firms. Even now that PwC, one of the ‘Big Four’ accounting firms has offered to do the needful, Tether has still not submitted to a full audit.

Besides this controversy, Tether has also faced allegations that it tries to misuse its token to manipulate price of bitcoin and for maintaining such suspicious levels of secrecy. The company has since then agreed to publish a regular “Transparency Report” and has also brought in a former executive from the Bank of Montreal to oversee its regulatory compliance and related efforts to maintain transparency and accountability.

Sumedha Bose

Sumedha uses words as her crutch to get by in life. She takes a keen interest in debating, dancing and destroying the patriarchy in her free time.

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