Tag: usdt

"Buckle Up" For Bitcoin's Next Bull Run, Cameron Winklevoss Says

Gemini CEO and co-founder Cameron Winklevoss believes that the next Bitcoin bull run coming up will be “dramatically different,” due to the innovative financial resources that crypto investors have access to nowadays and to the current economic infrastructure.   

Winklevoss Anticipates Next BTC Bull Run

Compared to previous bull markets, the billionaire crypto philanthropist said that with the rise of infrastructure, the influx of capital, and better projects at hand, Bitcoin (BTC) is set for its next bull run:  

“The next Bitcoin bull run will be dramatically different. Today, there’s exponentially more capital, human capital, infrastructure, and high-quality projects than in 2017. Not to mention the very real specter of inflation that all fiat regimes face going forward. Buckle up!” 

The Winklevoss brothers are on the same page regarding Bitcoin. Last week, Cameron’s twin brother and co-founder of Gemini, Tyler Winklevoss, commented on the US Federal Reserve’s economic stimulus strategy having a positive impact on Bitcoin and its pricing on the crypto market. Winklevoss stated that the Federal Reserve had set the stage for BTC’s next bull run. He referred to the fact that the US government is actively printing money in bulk in order to deliver an economic stimulus package to its citizens, to provide pandemic relief.  

Americans Use First-Time Stimulus Check for BTC

What seems to be interesting however, is that according to a report by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, instead of using their funds towards goods and services, many Americans directd their first-time stimulus checks of $1,200 towards investing in BTC funds. 

So despite coronavirus and the economic downfall happening worldwide, things appear to be looking up for the cryptocurrency market. Data points hint that crypto investors’ capital have been on the rise. Furthermore, with the increase in regulatory policies and the clarity of them, the infrastructure of the crypto market has been improving considerably.  

Why Was More Money Involved In the Last BTC Rally?

Researchers looked at two key points to explain why more money has been involved in the latest Bitcoin rally, where the dominant cryptocurrency underwent a huge surge. 

First of all, Tether(USDT), the market capitalization of Tether, the biggest stablecoin on the cryptocurrency market, has surpassed $10 billion in assets. Secondly, Grayscale Investments, the big-time cryptocurrency investment firm, has recently achieved a new high in the Assets Under Management (AUM) department. 

Stablecoin Tether On Top of Its Game

Tether has been up to now the biggest stablecoin on the crypto market. Investors worldwide have therefore relied a lot on the stablecoin to trade crypto. Countries with poor regulatory policies revolving around cryptocurrency regulation have favored Tether, as it is a stablecoin. With the rise in market cap of Tether to $10 billion, this may mean that cryptocurrency exchanges might be on the brink of a huge money influx, with more funds being used on them. 

As to further explain why more money has been involved in the latest BTC bull run, researchers turn towards Grayscale’s crypto-asset trusts as an explanation. The crypto asset trust funds of the large-scale investment firm are arguably the most utilized investment vehicles employed by businesses and networks looking to gain exposure to cryptocurrencies.  

Grayscale Investments Reaches $5.1 Billion

Recently, the assets under management by Grayscale Investments have achieved a new record, reaching an all-time high of $5.1 billion.  

On the subject matter, CEO of Grayscale Investments, Barry Silbert, said that Bitcoin has too much support from US government officials to ever be dismissed and shut down. The CEO thinks that blockchain firms’ success with regulatory policies put forth by officials can be attributed to pro-blockchain groups, such as Blockchain Association. The latter is a group who has advocated for digital firms by appealing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission in the past.

Silbert thinks that the blockchain industry has come a long way, with more and more investors looking at Bitcoin as an interesting hedge. In a Twitter post, he spoke about his own personal experience with his cryptocurrency investment firm. Silbert said that in 2013, when his company launched a Bitcoin investment fund, everyone thought they were crazy. “Well, look at us now…,” he added. 

This Week’s Bitcoin Bull Run

Overall, projects and companies in the Bitcoin and crypto industry seem to be increasing in quality. With the latest Bitcoin rally that happened earlier this week, there seems to be an indication that the cryptocurrency industry is on the rise.  Bitcoin surged past the $10,000 mark on Monday, creating a buzz in the financial industry. 

CEO of financial consultancy firm deVere Group, Nigel Green, was even bold enough to state that the cryptocurrency is set to potentially “knock gold from its long-held position” of being a safe-haven asset. 

Image source: Shutterstock

Bitfinex and Tether Face Market Manipulation Class Action Lawsuit

Roche Freedman, New York-based legal firm, filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of those who own cryptocurrency against Bitfinex and Tether and others for crypto market manipulation and creating the largest bubble in history.  

In the class-action suit, the New York-based legal firm alleged that Bitfinex and Tether had been involved in manipulating markets and concealing illicit proceeds, as stated in the tweet by the law firm’s founding partner, Kyle Roche.   

The complaint filed with the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York stated that Bitfinex and Tether were involved in a sophisticated scheme to defraud investors. The complaint said that the action concerns a “part-fraud, part-pump-and-dump, and part-money laundering.”  

Tether’s asset backing notion debunked  

The document further notes that Tether claims “that the number of [USDT] tokens in circulation will always equate to the dollars in its bank account.” However, this claim was a lie, according to Roche Freedman.   

The law firm claimed that Tether “issued extraordinary amounts of unbacked USDT to manipulate cryptocurrency prices. Because the market believed the like that one USDT equaled one US dollar, Bitfinex and Tether had the power to, and did manipulate the market on an unprecedented scale to profit from boom-and-bust cycles they created.” 

Image via Bitcoin Magazine

Tether Deny Bitcoin Bull Run Manipulation

Reporting on allegations made against Tether’s parent company iFinex, Tether has released follow up comments to deny any wrongdoing in the market. 

The USDT backed stable coin quickly published responses stating, Tether and its affiliates have never used Tether tokens or issuances to manipulate the cryptocurrency market or token pricing. All Tether tokens are fully backed by reserves and are issued pursuant to market demand, and not for the purpose of controlling the pricing of crypto assets. It is reckless — and utterly false — to assert that Tether tokens are issued in order to enable illicit activity. Tether token issuances have quadrupled since December 2017. This growth is not a product of manipulation; it is a result of Tether’s efficiency, acceptance and widescale utility within the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Market manipulation has been a constant and overwhelming feature across all crypto markets. Tether, large exchanges, and tokens have all been under severe scrutiny to start publishing internal documents and open up order books to the public. 

Griffin and Shams, who have brought this article to the public have been continually researching the marketplace and came to the conclusion a Tether Whale, likely Bitfinex was the main reason behind the Bitcoin price run. 

With both sides strongly believing in their figures and stats, it is unlikely any clear picture will show, until Bitfinex, open up their backend accounts. 

Image via Shutterstock

OKEx Launches USDT-Margined Futures Live Trading With Up To 100× Leverage

OKEx, the world’s largest futures crypto exchanges, announced the launching of BTC/USDT margined trading on its futures platform with an enticing leverage rate of 0.01-100×. Following the fulfillment of their simulation which began on November 5, the margined futures trading was launched live on Nov. 14.

Jay Hao, CEO of OKEx, confirmed the success of the simulation saying: “The simulation of our USDT Futures Contract was very successful, and we received positive feedback from traders in the OKEx community.”

This development made Hao ensure users of a secure, stable, and dependable trading environment that would meet their interests. Hao said: “At OKEx, we’ve developed a safe, reliable, and stable environment for cryptocurrency trading, and strive to offer new services based on our customers’ interests. We’re excited to add USDT linear contract to our Futures market and next on the Perpetual Swap market to meet the interests of our growing international user base.”

Merits of this new feature contract include efficiency and cost-effectiveness, liner contract, relative stability, and intuitive trading experience. It is also enriched with features such as leverage level of 0.01 to100x, the face value of 0.0001 BTC, tice size of 0.1, daily settlement time of 08:00 (UTC) and 24 hours trading.

The report stated that other major cryptocurrencies such as BSV, BCH, EOS, ETH, ETC, LTC, TRX, and XRP would soon be launched in the market.

Image via Shutterstock

Paxos—Regulated and Rising above Trustless Tether and Lost Libra

Exclusive interview with Charles Cascarilla, CEO and Co-Founder of Paxos: Part 2 (Link: Part 1)

Charles Cascarilla is the CEO and co-founder of Paxos, a financial technology company working to modernize the financial system by digitizing and mobilizing assets. Paxos is building a future where all assets—from money to gold to securities— can be digitized and then moved instantaneously.

In this second part of our interview with Cascarilla, he explains why the PAX stablecoin is ultimately superior to Tether and gives his thoughts on Facebook’s Libra project and the nature of money.

Paxos VS Tether

Paxos’ stablecoin the Paxos Standard (PAX) combines US Dollar stability with the efficiency of blockchain technology. Tether, another popular stablecoin and one of the oldest, was established in 2014 under the original name of RealCoin. While both are stablecoins, there are a number of key significant differences—the most significant being that PAX is regulated while controversy continues to surround Tether’s regulatory status and stablecoin classification. 

Cascarilla said, “Not only is Paxos regulated as a Trust Company, but our stablecoin is also approved by a regulator. So that means the product itself and how it was designed is regulation compliant.” He added, “The assets we hold are fully segregated. We couldn’t just announce tomorrow that we have an $800 million hole or we own other things besides what we record in our audit reports. So that’s a huge level of trust that we can create.”

According to Cascarilla, Tether made some important moves that showed the value that a tokenized dollar can have in changing the way crypto trading can happen. But it doesn’t address how you can change the whole financial system. He said, “Tokenized dollars or not, we have to be honest, no one’s using Tether for anything other than crypto-trading. We have to grow up as an industry and create products that can be widely used and widely trusted and Tether, by definition, is not that.” He added, “I’m very, very confident we will surpass Tether because the utility of what we’ve created by being regulated is much broader. PAX can be used in payments, remittance, FX trading, etc., whereas Tether itself is meant for a much narrower target audience.”

Charles shares his confidence in Paxos to overtake USDT as the leader of stablecoin during the Capital by CoinMarketCap.

Libra and the Nature of Money

Asked for his thoughts on Facebook’s Libra stablecoin project and whether it may pose a threat to Paxos if it is finally launched, Cascarilla believes it comes down to the fundamental nature of money. He explained, “I don’t want to make it too theoretical but basically, there are a couple of different ways money can be set up. One is fiat money. The second is what I would call open money like say gold, or maybe potentially Bitcoin. It depends on how Libra gets set up and what its value is pegged to, it’s still very unclear what form it will take, and therefore it is unclear how it will be regulated.”

For Cascarilla, the key takeaway is that Facebook, a company with 2.4 billion users, wants to use blockchain technology and move assets around. He said, “That’s hugely encouraging for the premise of having stablecoins, the premise of tokenizing assets—I think it demonstrates a vote of confidence in terms of how this technology can change the financial system and create inclusion.”

Encouraging as it may be, Cascarilla reaffirmed that you cannot just create inclusion without also having some forms of regulation and protection and it is still not exactly clear how Libra will be regulated. He said, “I think that’s been partly what they have been trying to work through. There’s been a lot of uncertainty, so it’s difficult to predict how it could affect us. Financial Services is not a winner takes all industry, it’s just too large—anything that can help push adoption and push us towards, I think, a more open system is something that we welcome very much.”

Credits to Walter Hessert and Becky McClain for the support to the interview.

Tether becomes First Stablecoin to be Integrated into Algorand 2.0 Blockchain

Tether has integrated its US dollar-backed stablecoin USDT into Algorand’s blockchain ecosystem. Tether is the first stablecoin to be launched on Algorand 2.0, and it facilitates automated wallet support, micropayments, and instant confirmation.

USDT hosted by different platforms

Tether has emerged as a behemoth in the stablecoin arena as it is the most utilized by traders on market capitalization and has existing partnerships with other platforms, such as Tron, Omni, EOS, Ethereum, and the Liquid Network. 

Algorand is the latest platform to host USDT, and its users will be able to access it using high scalability and speed. For instance, it has been revealed that Tether’s presence on Algorand will see block confirmation undertaken in less than four seconds, and transaction fees will be a fraction of a cent, which optimizes blockchain opportunities for micropayments. 

Tether’s  CTO, Paolo Ardoino, acknowledged, “Our latest collaboration with Algorand leverages the speed and security of Algorand’s protocol to give traders fast settlement and reduced counterparty risk in their fiat to digital asset transactions. Tether and Algorand both share a desire to keep building next-generation financial products, and we feel our growing customer base will appreciate and benefit greatly from this collaboration.”

Defi economy to be boosted

Algorand Inc’s CEO, Steve Kokinos, noted that Tether’s presence on their platform would prove to be a gamechanger for worldwide DeFi (decentralized finance) participants as it is one of the quickest means of moving money across the globe. 

He acknowledged, “We are excited that Tether has chosen to join the Algorand ecosystem, and its stablecoin will benefit from technology that provides immediate transaction finality and security to support a strong and more stable DeFi economy.” 

Notable financial institutions, such as central banks and leading financial service providers, have been penetrating the stablecoin space. For instance, in October 2019, the Global Currency Organization revealed the establishment of a new USD Digital (USDD) token that was to be instrumental in institutions’ revenue sharing. 

Image via Shutterstock

Tether's Blockchain Ecosystem Continues to Grow with USDT Launch on Bitcoin Cash Network

Tether’s USDT token, the world’s largest stablecoin by marketcap, has launched on the Bitcoin Cash network.

As the Coronavirus disruption has taken hold of the markets, it appears that people are not turning to either Bitcoin or Gold in the face of the crisis but cold hard cash and their digital alternatives. Tether in particular has seen a surge of interest and its stablecoin, USDT, currently has a market cap of over $5.7 billion and over $180 million in new tokens have been created over the last few days.

USDT is available on the Bitcoin Cash network via the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) which is BCH’s token conceptually similar to Etheruem’s ERC20. USDT is also available on Algorand, EOS, Tron, Omni and the Liquid Network.

The SLP protocol allows anyone to create tokens on the Bitcoin Cash network in a permissionless way. The majority of Tether token run on Ethereum and a moving a significant proportion to the Bitcoin Cash network , which has larger blocks and lower fees than bitcoin itself, may help reduce demand on the Ethereum network and lower gas fees.

“A key strength of Tether is that it is underpinned by a rich diversity of different blockchains,” said Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether. “Our latest collaboration with Bitcoin Cash will provide Tether with a variety of benefits. We expect the adoption after launch to be pretty easy for any integrator. The launch will also support more applications on the Bitcoin Cash chain, with Tether facilitating payment for these applications.”

Bitcoin Cash Wallet Upgrade

Bitcoin Cash’s Bitcoin,com recent wallet upgrade supports its users in accessing SLP tokens and now USDT as well.

“It’s extremely exciting to hear that the world’s biggest stablecoin will be using the Bitcoin Cash Blockchain and that the millions of Bitcoin.com wallet holders will be able to send and receive Tether using SLP tokens,” said Roger Ver, Executive Chairman of Bitcoin.com.

With built-in token management support, users can send, receive, and store a variety of tokens that represent anything from dollar-pegged stablecoins to virtual gaming assets and company loyalty points, with the private keys held only by the user.

USDT hosted by different platforms

Tether has emerged as a behemoth in the stablecoin arena as it is the most utilized by traders on market capitalization and has existing partnerships with other platforms, such as Tron, Omni, EOS, Ethereum, and the Liquid Network.

Prior to the Bitcoin Cash announcement, Algorand became the latest platform to host USDT, and its users will be able to access it using high scalability and speed. For instance, it has been revealed that Tether’s presence on Algorand will see block confirmation undertaken in less than four seconds, and transaction fees will be a fraction of a cent, which optimizes blockchain opportunities for micropayments.

Tether’s  CTO, Paolo Ardoino, acknowledged, “Our collaboration with Algorand leverages the speed and security of Algorand’s protocol to give traders fast settlement and reduced counterparty risk in their fiat to digital asset transactions. Tether and Algorand both share a desire to keep building next-generation financial products, and we feel our growing customer base will appreciate and benefit greatly from this collaboration.”

Image via Shutterstock

April 21: Essential Oil No More

Trading Crypto with Eugene is a series of daily commentary of market analysis and trading advice shared by Eugene Ng of Matrixport, a veteran trader with 10 years of experience in top-tier global investment banks. If you like the article, please follow us here on Blockchain.News so you won’t miss our future publications.

With the exception of USDT, the top 10 market-cap coins are in the red in the past 24 hours with majors mostly down between 4 to 10%. Official confirmation from PBOC that it’ll be testing a mobile app for its digital yuan in four cities with a fifth in the works. Despite the positive news, practically almost everyone was looking at oil last night as crude may oil futures settled at a historic -$37.63.WTI should be renamed as WTF. Many argued that it was due to $USO rebalancing, but this isn’t the case because the ETF was only down 9% as USO would have owned mostly June contracts now. In short, it’s due to retail players not being able to take on physically owned oil (brokers had to liquidate their retail accounts) and to a lesser extent, storages are running tight. On a side note, I actually think it’s a great time to nimble into the oil. Who knows maybe the Fed will start buying oil too? 

A $660 billion commodity blew up last night, but BTC only down 4%, another sign that volatility has indeed been declining as the market awaits for halving, increasingly feels more and more binary. Another interesting development is that Tether’s market cap has now grown more than US $7bil with $120mil minted recently. 

My bias for higher was driven by technicals yesterday, and today I struggle again to be decisive in where we move. I still think risk assets will give up some of its gains this week; we are only 15% from all-time high in stock markets when the world is in lockdown, global recession, oil market crashed, busted supply chains, 25million unemployed (and more to come), an implosion in global trade, and potential second wave attacks from covid19. The second reason is that Morgan Stanley estimates a selling flow of $30-50 bn of global equities for rebalancing at the end of the month (larger than average) and usually it starts 5-7 days before the month-end.

How do we trade? Keep holding the $7,500 call option as a lottery ticket, while I would advocate on following where risk assets trade. It is also time to start going long volatility (i.e. buy puts or calls) given that implied volatility has basically returned to pre-March crash levels and looking a lot more attractive than before. Good luck. 

Cup & Handle Pattern tends to be bullish continuation patterns so technicals supporting the uptrend narrative…

Larger wedge formation shows potential for $7,800 to $8,000 region if we do see the uptrend technical play out…

ETH in a triangle too… There is a chance we go either direction, but just wanted to highlight to you how far it has rallied since Friday.. more than 25%…

DisclaimerOpinions expressed are solely the analyst’s own and do not express the views of Matrixport the company.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the view of Blockchain.News.

Justin Sun Tweets Tron just Issued $1.3 Billion in Tether, Here's What it Means for Crypto

While the broader cryptocurrency market is still reeling from a multi-year bear market since 2017, stablecoins like Tether are seeing action. Billions of dollars in USDT have been issued since its launch and the addition of Tron-backed stablecoin issuance, coupled with the now-concluded Bitcoin halving, signals a volatile period ahead for crypto traders and investors.

Nearly $3 Billion Issued to Date

Tether issued on Tron’s native blockchain has exceeded the latter’s market cap. To date, approximately $3 billion in USDT in Tron has been issued, almost three times Tron’s $1 billion market cap. 

On May 12, Tron founder Justin Sun tweeted:

The thread received mixed responses. Some state the move brings forth much-needed liquidity and Tether-backing to the crypto market, infamous for its volatility. Others suggest the move is unneeded — excessive printing of USDT leads to unfair prop ups of Bitcoin prices, suggesting artificially inflated coin values similar to pump-and-dump schemes. 

Tether has been printing at an alarming rate since late-2017 when Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market crashed more than 60 percent. Altcoins like Tron were crushed, falling as much as 90 percent from all-time-highs.

The bear market was an opportune time for Tether, and other stablecoins like Paxos and USDC, to serve investors and crypto traders as a relatively stable asset to protect against volatility and capital. 

Tether was initially, in 2017, issued on Omni-layer Bitcoin, shifted to Ethereum, and then ended up at Tron due to the latter’s scalability, network heuristics, and secure algorithm. As of today, the amount of Tether (USDT) tokens issued on the Tron (TRX) blockchain now accounts for nearly 20 percent of all USDT tokens.

(TRC20-based USDT on Tronscan)

Bitfinex and Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino explained Tether’s “chain swap:”

“This process allows traders to obtain access to the various blockchains that support the cryptocurrency that they are holding, thereby enabling the use of their digital assets on these other supporting blockchains.”

Each time Tether prints large volumes, an initial surge in cryptocurrency prices follows. This usually precedes a drop, as traders presumably use stablecoin as collateral to enter “short” positions and contribute towards volatility. 

Importantly, such periods also see increased activity in the altcoin market. Coupled with Bitcoin’s now-concluded halving, the Tether issuance could mark another surge for Bitcoin and altcoins in the coming weeks, possibly even shifting BTC’s current 65 percent market dominance to under 50 percent if 2016’s post-halving trading conditions are replicated. 

Image via Shutterstock

Paxful Crypto Peer-to-Peer Marketplace Expands Beyond Bitcoin with Tether USDT Stablecoin

Paxful, the leading peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform, announced that it will be adding stablecoin Tether to its crypto payment options.

By adding Tether (USDT) to its crypto marketplace, Paxful is hoping that investors could be better protected against the volatility of the crypto market and that it could be an improvement to their assets portfolio. With Bitcoin and Tether, Paxful users could pay for goods and services online with cryptocurrency, as well as buy and trade digital assets among themselves with ease.

Paxful enlists Tether

Paxful already offers more than 300 payment options as of now. With the addition of Tether, the global peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace hopes to enable users to “be more in control of their finances.” The company also asserts that Tether can be leveraged for digital asset protection against inflation, and a hedge option, when needed. During Bitcoin (BTC) price fluctuations, Paxful users could convert BTC to USDT, and vice versa, to protect their crypto assets. Co-founder of Paxful, Ray Youssef, said:

“We consider this a big step for us since this is the first cryptocurrency other than bitcoin we have on the platform. We always listen to our users. We understand that they go to Paxful for wealth generation and turn to crypto for stability when their national currency is affected by inflation.”

Fighting inflation with USDT stablecoin

Tether’s addition to Paxful is big news for investors, as USDT is the largest stablecoin. Trailing behind Bitcoin and Ethereum, Tether is the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, with a value of $14 billion. The stablecoin’s value mirrors that of the US dollar and is often leveraged as an option by first-time crypto investors who are looking to venture into digital currency investments.

Due to the high cost and transaction fees of converting crypto to fiat and vice versa, Tether is seen as an interesting alternative by many, as it is cost-friendly and economical. After converting fiat to Tether on the trading platform, the digital currency could be traded for more volatile crypto, such as Bitcoin.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin trading platform Paxful has listed 4.5 million registered wallets and is reported to have reached 4.6 billion USD in trading volume. The peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace is anticipating a bigger influx of new traders for the months to come.

Bitcoin for wealth

In an exclusive interview with Blockchain.news earlier this year, Youssef discussed how this was the perfect time to capitalize on Bitcoin investments, saying that peer-to-peer trading is an emerging investment tool that will benefit many investors, as COVID-19 has severely dented major economies worldwide. With countries desperate to recover, “radical economic measures” have put in place to reduce the impact. However, the measures have not always proven to be beneficial. CEO of Paxful Youssef said:

“These measures have the potential to hurt the economy in the longer run. In this case, Bitcoin can serve as a better store of value for wealth. This means an even more robust ecosystem of P2P trading with newer participants and a greater reach.”

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