The stablecoin Tether has received arguably the highest confidence mark to date. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Pro has opened deposits for the USDT stablecoin from Tether. The asset will be listed on April 26th.
Tether will be listed on the Coinbase Pro platform in the form of an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain.
Trading will start on April 26 in pairs with Bitcoin, Ether, Euro, Pound, Dollar and USDC, subject to meeting liquidity requirements.
The stablecoin will be available in all jurisdictions Coinbase serves with the exception of New York State.
Starting today, inbound transfers for USDT are now available in the regions where trading is supported. Traders cannot place orders and no orders will be filled. Trading will begin on or after 6PM PT on Monday April 26, if liquidity conditions are met.
– Coinbase Pro (@CoinbasePro) April 22, 2021
Before that, USDT was already available on American exchanges such as Kraken and Binance.US.
Coinbase, however, is subject to stricter regulatory oversight than its closest competitors. The listing takes place just over a week after Coinbase was added to the Nasdaq stock market. Two months ago, Tether settled claims with the New York Attorney’s Office, which fined the company and its sister exchange Bitfinex $ 18.5 million. At the time, Attorney Laetitia James issued a formidable statement.
“Bitfinex and Tether irresponsibly and illegally harbored large financial losses in order to maintain their scheme and protect their profits,” she said.
Tether’s claims that its virtual currency was fully backed by US dollars at all stages were false. This decision makes it clear that those who trade virtual currencies in New York and think they can get away from our laws cannot and will not do it. »
Tether has long been surrounded by a controversial reputation due to speculation about unsecured issuance of stablecoins to manipulate the cryptocurrency market and confirmed lending to Bitfinex from its own reserves, which became the subject of an investigation by the Prosecutor General’s Office. However, the facts speak for themselves. Coinbase is listing a stablecoin after two key events.
“Traders have long understood that without USDT, it will be almost impossible to trade bitcoin and altcoins,” an analyst at Fomocap wrote earlier, referring to “liquidity, fiat channels, OTC transactions, miners and cold wallets” as areas of use for stablecoins.
Tether remains the most traded asset of the cryptocurrency market today with a trading volume of $ 193 billion over the past 24 hours.Tether is followed by bitcoin with $ 90 billion.The capitalization of stablecoin as a result of its rapid growth in the current cycle is approaching $ 50 billion, although at the beginning of the year it was about $ 20 billion …
Under the terms of the agreement with the Attorney General’s Office, Tether has committed to regularly publish reports on USDT collateral and released the first in March. Although the valuation methodology leaves much to be desired and is far from a full audit, Moore Cayman confirmed that at the time of the audit, USDT was indeed over-backed by the issuer.
“We believe that the evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a reasonable assurance opinion. The management of Tether Holdings Limited is responsible for the information presented in their report, which relates to the consolidated assets of Tether Holding Limited to secure their consolidated liabilities, ”the audit company said.
Coinbase takes a similar position in its press release:
“In the case of stablecoins such as USDT, the company behind the protocol is responsible for holding reserves that fully back each token. The company behind Tether, Tether Limited, claims to hold reserves that fully support each USDT. «
Coinbase has its own stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), issued by the CENTER consortium, of which it is a member with Circle. USDC is by far the second largest stablecoin with a market cap of $ 11 billion.
“This strongly legitimizes Tether, which is supporting huge price action, and now makes arbitrage on non-fiat exchanges more straightforward, which has a huge impact on capital flows,” said Cinneamhain Ventures partner Ed Cochran.
Lawyer Stephen Pally suggests looking at the situation from a different angle.
“Perhaps this drastically invalidates Coinbase,” he wrote.
