Tether is undoubtedly the father of all USD stablecoins, but it has gone through the ringer recently after a barrage of scandals emerged. USDT has been linked to a number of price manipulation events in the Bitcoin market, so the news that Tether has printed 150 million more USDT has set alarm bells ringing in the crypto trading world. In the past when Tether has printed fresh USDT, the price of Bitcoin has risen dramatically – most notably during the 2017 bull run. Crypto traders as holding their breath to see if this huge influx of USDT will send Bitcoin’s price through the roof and be the catalyst for the next all-time high.
Charlie Lee Spelling it Out
Back in June 2018, Tether printed a fresh batch of 311 million USDT tokens and we saw a similar panic set in. However, as Charlie Lee very wisely pointed out, surely this money will be used to buy Bitcoin or other cryptos at some point – but it doesn’t mean it will all go into crypto right away. USDT is the biggest stablecoin out there, and this simply makes it very popular. So, when people go to buy a stablecoin, there is a good chance they will opt for USDT – meaning Tether has to print big batches.
Tether Isn’t Totally Fiat Backed
The whole point of a USD stablecoin like USDT is that Tether keeps 100% of the USDT issued in reserve in USD. Yet, Tether recently updated the wording on its website and admitted that USDT isn’t 100% backed by fiat. Now, if this holds true then a large portion of this 150 million USDT that has just been printed could simply be magic money. This means that it’s not backed by anything and has simply been printed for the sake of market manipulation.
Not Moving… Yet
For now, the freshly minted USDT is staying put, Whale Alert hasn’t issued any notifications saying that the tokens have been sent to any exchange. If we see the USDT head to Bitfinex then we could be in for a nice Bitcoin pump and dump, so if BTC suddenly rises it might be worth taking some profits off the table – just in case it’s more manipulation.
We’re going to have to wait and see what happens to the price of Bitcoin and where this fresh batch of USDT is heading. Hopefully, Tether can prove to the world that its murky days are long gone and that from now on it’s going to be a legitimate stablecoin.
