Tether (USDT) Issues New Tokens Worth $50 Million

Published on 13 August 2018 by Cryptovest Staff

The most popular albeit controversial USD-backed coin has increased its total supply by 50 billion amid stabilising cryptocurrency markets.

Tether, the company behind USDT, a stable coin pegged to the US dollar, released 50 million new tokens on August 11, according to data from OmniExploer. The move comes at a time when most cryptocurrencies are stabilising, following previous declines. A quick check reveals the wallet address to which the coins were transferred, shows it is owned by Bitfinex.

The two entities are basically operated by the same management. Adding USDT liquidity at key times has been seen as a way to manipulate the prices of cryptocurrencies by many, including economics professor John Griffin. This is one of the controversies surrounding the stablecoin, which for some time has also been facing claims that the company does not have the adequate capital to back all the created tokens.

The decision pushes the total supply to 3.08 billion USDT, but it is definitely not as significant as similar moves which occurred in 2017. Tether’s market capitalization (which differs from the total amount of tokens created) has started shrinking since late July and the release can be seen as a way to counterbalance this dynamic.

What is more interesting is that USDT trading volumes are on the rise moving over 4.7 billion on Monday, compared to 2-3 billion in the previous week (excluding a few spikes). Furthermore, cryptocurrency markets have started finding support around the time of the release. The total market cap of all digital assets is around 217 billion, above the psychological 200 level. Bitcoin stays higher than the key $6,000 handle, an important level from a technical perspective.

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