25 Mar 2020 Josphat Kariuki
Tether Mints Another Batch Of 180 Million Tokens Amid High Trading Volumes
Tether, one of the most controversial crypto projects in the sector, has minted nearly 180 million USDT on March 24, 2020 alone. The crypto community raised a flag of concern whether Tether is acting as a support for Bitcoin’s price. Some experts believe the leader in the stablecoin category of cryptocurrencies is preparing for a possible demand surge. The surge, if happens, will most likely significantly affect the price of Bitcoin, as well as the entire crypto sector, as USDT is often referred to a “gateway” to the world of crypto.
Twitter-based crypto watchdog WhaleAlert informed the crypto community that Tether’s Treasury released two separate batches of USDT – the first batch contained 120,000,000 USDT, while the other contained 60 million tokens.
However, the crypto community sees something outside of the regular minting process. Amid 40% drops in the sector, most of the stablecoin projects started minting tokens to cope with the possible demands after the fall. However, Tether leads the pack, with over $240 million USDT tokens, created in just three days. WhaleAlert discovered a total of four batches of 60 million USDT between March 18 and March 20.
The CTO of Bitfinex, Paolo Ardoino, kept his stance that the current token minting is nothing more than an “inventory replenish.” However, looking at Tether’s trading volumes, crypto experts are concerned about the long-term capability of Tether to back such vast quantities of USDT with U.S. dollars.
The trading volume difference between Tether and Bitcoin is now over $9 billion in Tether’s favor. The leader in stablecoins recorded $54,547,033,958 in trading volumes in the past 24 hours, while Bitcoin still hangs below the $50 billion mark.
Ardoino explained that albeit the tokens being minted, they are not issued into circulation, which means there are no backing issues.
The real concern crypto enthusiast and experts have, is to what extended Tether controls and/or defines Bitcoin’s price. The #1 crypto recorded a strong weekly recovery, regaining 25% of the losses, which Bitcoin recorded only a week ago. Currently, Bitcoin trades at $6,735.5, with a 67,76% dominance over the crypto sector. Despite the massive fall from March 23, Bitcoin recovered and started a steep climb ever since, with a high of $6,809.57.
Ethereum (ETH), the altcoin leader, is up with 15% weekly, trading at $136.28, as of press time. Ripple (XRP) managed to stay afloat over $0,16, with some turbulent price shifts last week. Currently, Ripple sells for $0.160390, which is almost 1% down over the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin Ethereum Cryptocurrency Regulations Cryptocurrency Crypto Market Tether Bitfinex stable coin Ripple crypto coins cryptocurrencies coin Stablecoin Stablecoins USDT Minting
