Tether- The Stablecoin
- Tanishq Wadhwani
- May 10, 2021
- 6 min read
Twitter: Bringing real world currency to the blockchain.
Tether (USDT) was one of the first cryptocurrencies to peg its market value to a fiat currency. Launched in July 2014, Tether, originally called “Realcoin”, valued each token at $1.00 to reduce the friction of moving real currency throughout the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Due to its dollar peg, Tether and other similar cryptocurrencies have been dubbed “stablecoins”. Tether is the largest stablecoin by market capitalization and its users can redeem tethers for dollars. Originally, Tether launched on Bitcoin’s Omni Layer, but continues to expand to other protocols, including Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, TRON, EOS, and Liquid Network.
Originally launched in July 2014 as Realcoin, a second-layer cryptocurrency token built on top of Bitcoin’s blockchain through the use of the Omni platform, it was later renamed to USTether, and then, finally, to USDT. In addition to Bitcoin’s, USDT was later updated to work on the Ethereum, EOS, Tron, Algorand, and OMG blockchains.
Tether is a blockchain-based cryptocurrency whose cryptocoins in circulation are backed by an equivalent amount of traditional fiat currencies, like the dollar, the euro, or the Japanese yen, which are held in a designated bank account. Tether tokens, the native tokens of the Tether network, trade under the USDT symbol.
Tether belongs to a breed of cryptocurrencies called stablecoins which aim to keep cryptocurrency valuations stable, as opposed to the wide swings observed in the prices of other popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. That would allow it to be used as a medium of exchange and a mode of storage of value, instead of being used as a medium of speculative investments. Furthermore, having USDT (as opposed to the U.S. dollar) removes transaction costs and delays that impair trade execution within the crypto market. It is also much quicker and cheaper to transfer BTC or any other cryptocurrecny into Tether rather than the U.S. dollar.
While Tether has dropped below $1 before, the stablecoin is able to retain its value because it is pegged to a matching fiat currency and 100% backed by Tether's reserves. The token’s peg to the USD is achieved via maintaining a sum of dollars in reserves that is equal to the number of USDT in circulation. According to Tether, whenever it issues new USDT tokens, it allocates the same amount of USD to its reserves, thus ensuring that USDT is fully backed by cash and cash equivalents. Tether’s issuer claims that USDT is backed by bank reserves and loans which match or exceed the value of USDT in circulation.
Tether specifically belongs to the category of fiat-collateralized stablecoins. This means that a fiat currency like the US dollar, the euro, or the yen, backs each cryptocoin in circulation. Other stablecoin categories include crypto-collateralized stablecoins, which use cryptocurrency reserves as collateral, or non-collateralized stablecoins. Non-collateralized stablecoins don’t have any collateral but operate in a way similar to that of a reserve bank to maintain the necessary supply of tokens, depending on the economic situation. Other stablecoins include True USD (TUSD), Pazos Standard (PAX), and USD Coin (USD).
Tether was specifically designed to build the necessary bridge between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies and offer stability, transparency, and minimal transaction charges to users. It is pegged against the U.S. dollar and maintains a 1-to-1 ratio with the U.S. dollar in terms of value. However, there is no guarantee provided by Tether Ltd. for any right of redemption or exchange of Tethers for real money – that is, Tethers cannot be exchanged for U.S. dollars.
According to a study by CryptoCompare, a global cryptocurrency market data provider, bitcoin to Tether trading still represents the majority of BTC traded into fiat or stablecoin. In February 2021, 57% of all bitcoin trading was done in USDT. Tether remains a major source of liquidity for the cryptocurrency market.
In addition, USDT provides a simple way to transact a U.S. dollar equivalent between regions, countries and even continents via blockchain — without having to rely on a slow and expensive intermediary, like a bank or a financial services provider.
USDT — or as it was known at the time, Realcoin — was launched in 2014 by Brock Pierce, Reeve Collins and Craig Sellars. They believed in greater freedom, security, and access to money. That’s why they built the first real-world currency platform on the Bitcoin Blockchain. Tether provides a secure, fast, and low-cost way to store, send, and receive money on the Blockchain as if it were bitcoin.
Brock Pierce is a well-known entrepreneur who has co-founded a number of high-profile projects in the crypto and entertainment industries. In 2013, he co-founded a venture capital firm Blockchain Capital, which by 2017 had raised over $80 million in funding. In 2014, Pierce became the director of the Bitcoin Foundation, a nonprofit established to help improve and promote Bitcoin. Pierce has also co-founded Block.one, the company behind EOS, one of the largest cryptocurrencies on the market.
Reeve Collins was the CEO of Tether for the first two years of its existence. Prior to that, he had co-founded several successful companies, such as the online ad network Traffic Marketplace, entertainment studio RedLever and gambling website Pala Interactive. As of 2020, Collins is heading SmarMedia Technologies, a marketing and advertising tech company.
Other than working on Tether, Craig Sellars has been a member of the Omni Foundation for over six years. Its Omni Protocol allows users to create and trade smart-contract based properties and currencies on top of Bitcoin’s blockchain. Sellars has also worked in several other cryptocurrency companies and organizations, such as Bitfinex, Factom, Synereo and the MaidSafe Foundation.
Tether is called a stablecoin because it was originally designed to always be worth $1.00, maintaining $1.00 in reserves for each tether issued. Nevertheless, Tether Limited states that owners of tethers have no contractual right, other legal claims, or guarantee that tethers will be redeemed or exchanged for dollars. On 30 April 2019 Tether Limited's lawyer claimed that each tether was backed by only $0.74 in cash and cash equivalents. Over the years, there have been a number of controversies regarding the validity of Tether’s claims about their USD reserves, at times disrupting USDT’s price, which went down as low as $0.88 at one point in its history. Many have raised concerns about the fact that Tether’s reserves have never been fully audited by an independent third party.
Tether was launched as RealCoin in July 2014 and was rebranded as Tether in November by Tether Ltd., the company that is responsible for maintaining the reserve amounts of fiat currency. It started trading in February 2015.
In November 2017, Tether was allegedly hacked with $31 million worth of Tether coins stolen, after which a hard fork was performed. In January 2018, it hit another hurdle as the necessary audit to ensure that the real-world reserve is maintained never took place. Instead, it announced it was parting ways with the audit firm, after which it was issued a subpoena by regulators. Worries about whether the company, accused of a lack of transparency, has enough in reserves to back the coin have been pervasive.
In April 2019, New York Attorney General Letitia James accused iFinex Inc., the parent company of Tether Ltd. and operator of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, of hiding a loss of $850 million dollars of co-mingled client and corporate funds from investors. Court filings say these funds were given to a Panamanian entity called Crypto Capital Corp. without a contract or agreement, to handle customers-withdrawal requests. Bitfinex allegedly took at least $700 million from Tether’s cash reserves to hide the gap after the money went missing.
In a statement, the companies said the filings "were written in bad faith and are riddled with false assertions. On the contrary, we have been informed that these Crypto Capital amounts are not lost but have been, in fact, seized and safeguarded. We are and have been actively working to exercise our rights and remedies and get those funds released. Sadly, the New York Attorney General’s office seems to be intent on undermining those efforts to the detriment of our customers."
It formerly falsely claimed that each token was backed by one United States dollar, but on 14 March 2019 changed the backing to include loans to affiliate companies. The Bitfinex exchange was the subject of a lawsuit by the New York Attorney General of using Tether's funds to cover up $850 million in funds missing since mid-2018. According to the New York Attorney General, "Tether’s claims that its virtual currency was fully backed by U.S. dollars at all times was a lie".
Tether Limited and the tether cryptocurrency are controversial because of the company's alleged role in manipulating the price of bitcoin, an unclear relationship with the Bitfinex exchange, its apparent lack of a long-term banking relationship, and the company’s failure to provide a promised audit showing adequate reserves backing the Tether token. Author David Gerard was quoted by the Wall Street Journal saying that Tether "is sort of the central bank of crypto trading ... [yet] they don't conduct themselves like you'd expect a responsible, sensible financial institution to do." Tether's price decreased to lows of $0.90 on 15 October 2018 on speculation that investors are losing faith in the token. On 20 November 2018, Bloomberg reported that U.S. federal prosecutors are investigating whether Tether was used to manipulate the price of bitcoin.
Nonetheless, in 2019, Tether surpassed Bitcoin in trading volume with the highest daily and monthly trading volume of any cryptocurrency on the market. Tether tokens can be transacted on popular cryptocurrency exchanges that include Binanace, CoinSpot, BitFinex, and Kraken.
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