One of the reasons to invest in stablecoins is their de-pegging event. When stablecoins trade below their intended peg of 1:1 with a fiat currency, short traders can turn around and exchange them for the promised parity. In that respect, stablecoins are like money market funds. Over the years, Tether, the world’s biggest stablecoin by market capitalization, has lost its peg numerous times and traded … Continue reading Shorting Tether
Where does Tether get its revenues? Over the years, the stablecoin claims to have made redemptions worth billions of dollars. At the same time, it has made investments and loans worth millions of dollars to crypto ventures on the side. It has 42 employees, per LinkedIn. Where does it get the cash to manage these business activities? The company’s financials are a black box. … Continue reading Where Does Tether Get Its Revenues?
In the early days of the United States, private banks were allowed to issue money on the condition that it was backed by gold. This meant that customers could redeem their specie and notes for gold, which was considered a stable medium of exchange in an economy rife with fraudsters and hucksters issuing fake money. But a high redemption rate could eat into a bank’s … Continue reading The Tether Redemption Conundrum
Binance USD (BUSD), Binance’s stablecoin, is among the few businesses of the exchange’s sprawling operations that is regulated. It is issued by Paxos – a registered Trust company in New York that was a cryptocurrency exchange in its earlier avatar – and regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). That stamp from authorities allays investor fears about BUSD reserves – deposits meant … Continue reading Notes 12/31: Binance’s BUSD: An Unstable Stablecoin
After mostly vegetating in the $16,000 to $17,000 range for the last month, bitcoin price sprang to life yesterday and today. Yesterday’s announcement of lower-than-expected reading of inflation figures was said to have boosted the cryptocurrency’s price. The positive sentiment seems to have carried over today and bitcoin broke past the $18,000 barrier for the first time since 8 Nov. As of this writing, it … Continue reading Notes 12/14: Tether Bumps Up Bitcoin Price, Tether Shorts, and SBF Drama
The big news this week has been stablecoin issuer Circle’s decision to scrap its plans for a public listing through a merger with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) played spoilsport to the company’s plans by withholding its approval for the deal. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire put on a brave front and released a statement that held out hope for … Continue reading Circle’s Mounting List of Woes
Up until now, the fallout from FTX’s bankruptcy has largely remained manageable. Its casualties have been limited inside crypto and outside it. But a story in the New York Times yesterday is an omen that the exchange’s collapse will bring down bigger players. According to The Times, Alameda Research – the crypto trading firm cofounded by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, invested in Farmington State Bank, … Continue reading Notes 11/24: FTX and Tether, Entrepreneurs Who Lunch (with FT)
It was unthinkable some years ago. Fed Day – a day when the Federal Reserve Open Markets Committee (FOMC) meets – is fast becoming an important ritual in bitcoin’s calendar because it determines the cryptocurrency’s future price trajectory. Cryptocurrency markets are poised in anticipation of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s announcement his afternoon regarding interest rate hikes. Last month, Chairman Powell indicated that consumers should be … Continue reading Notes 9/21: FOMC and Bitcoin Price, Retail CBDCs, and Tether In Trouble Again
The Merge – Ethereum’s anticipated transition from an energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) continues to move markets in cryptocurrency. The Bellatrix Upgrade, initiated on the Ethereum chain this morning, pushed the price of ether, Ethereum’s native token, up by 5% to $164.37 from its price 24 hours ago. On a weekly basis, the price of ether is up by 10%. Momentum for … Continue reading Notes 9/6: The Merge Boosts Ethereum, Binance Provides A Leg Up To USDC
The fun never stops in cryptocurrencies. When they are not tilting at the windmills of a surveillance state, crypto purists are devising methods to escape it. The latest attempt comes from MakerDAO, a lending platform that is also home to Dai, the world’s fourth biggest stablecoin by market capitalization. Rune Christensen, one of its founders, proposed an “endgame” for the stablecoin to convert it into … Continue reading MakerDAO’s Unlikely Evolution
Controversial stablecoin Tether’s holdings of commercial paper fell and its cash and bank deposit holdings rose, according to “reasonable engagement report” released yesterday. The report provides a breakdown of the reserves backing tokens circulating in the market. Tether claims that its holdings of commercial paper and cash and bank deposits increased by 58% and 32% respectively. [Commercial paper is considered a risky investment because its … Continue reading Tether’s Misrepresentations Continue In Its Latest Reserves Report
The world’s biggest stablecoin has switched accounting firms again. In an announcement this morning, Tether said it had hired BDO Italia, a subsidiary of BDO Inc., one of the world’s biggest accounting firms, to produce attestations about its reserve holdings – a basket of assets that is used to back up and facilitate quick redemption of Tether tokens. It also said that it was planning … Continue reading Tether Hires New Accounting Firm 
According to reports, lending firm BlockFi is being sold in a fire sale to FTX. The firm, which was seeking a valuation of $5 billion in its previous funding round has a price tag of $25 million now. The reasons for a crash in its valuation are not clear. BlockFi CEO Zac Prince yesterday linked to a podcast he did with Castle Island Ventures last … Continue reading Notes: 1/7: BlockFi Valuation, EU Crypto Regulation, and More CoinFlex Drama
According to reports, traditional hedge funds have begun shorting Tether, the world’s biggest stablecoin by market capitalization and transaction volume. Leon Marshall, head of institutional sales at Genesis – a market maker, told the Wall Street Journal that interest from traditional hedge funds in shorting Tether has spiked in recent weeks. There are two reasons for this. First, they believe that the broader macroeconomic slump … Continue reading Traditional Hedge Funds Are Shorting Tether. Can They Bring It Down?
There goes the dream of decentralization. Bitcoin enthusiasts have railed against central banks since the cryptocurrency was introduced to the world in the aftermath of a global financial crisis, widely blamed on central bank policymaking. But digital currencies issued by central banks, also known as Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), are at the center of a future monetary system in a report released by the … Continue reading CBDCs Will Drive The Future Monetary System: BIS Report
UST. Celsius. Three Arrows Capital. The list of crypto’s casualties in the current downturn is growing by the day. There’s more bad news ahead. Experts say that the crypto ecosystem is due another capitulation event. “Some giant player will go to zero [soon],” Shark tank personality and crypto investor Kevin O’Leary told Coindesk recently. The chances it might be Tether, the world’s biggest stablecoin, are … Continue reading Will Tether, Crypto’s Biggest Stablecoin, Be Its Next Casualty?
Terra blockchain’s new token LUNA seems to be a chip off the old block. Within hours of debuting this past Friday, the token’s price shot up by 47% to a peak of $19.53. It crashed soon after and reached a low of $3.98 on the same day based on data from Coinmarketcap. As of this writing, it has recovered to trade at $9.16. According to … Continue reading Terra’s LUNA Jumps On Debut, Then Crashes
The crash of algorithmic stablecoin UST continues to be a head spinning mess. Many big investors in the Terra blockchain and its native currency Luna claim to have cashed out of their holdings, some for a striking profit. But there doesn’t seem to be much respite for retail investors in the token. Luna, the underlying token responsible for maintaining UST’s peg, is practically worthless. Even … Continue reading What Happened to Investors During The UST Crash?
It’s yesterday once more in cryptoland. The dizzying rise and rapid fall of algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD’s (UST) demise brings to mind the initial coin offering (ICO) frenzy of 2017. Back then, all you needed to raise funds from investors was a whitepaper and a generous marketing budget to hype the offering. With the media and crypto enthusiasts cheering on, investors poured money into the empty … Continue reading In The Aftermath of stablecoin UST’s Collapse
The unraveling of stablecoin TerraUSD’s (UST) peg to the US dollar continues unabated. As of this writing, it is trading at $0.40, down 23.7% from its price 24 hours ago, according to data from Coinbase. That figure is a far way off from its $1 peg to the US dollar but still represents an improvement from trading lows of 23 cents to the dollar on … Continue reading Stablecoin Terra’s Peg Continues to Unravel
A successful algorithmic stablecoin is the Internet equivalent of a freestanding dollar, a currency cut off from its peg to the gold standard. Recent advances in technology and cryptography make the idea sound deceptively simple. Practical implementation, however, remains elusive. Many attempts at creating algorithmic stablecoins have failed in the past. TerraUSD (UST) is the latest example of one such coin teetering on the brink … Continue reading Terra And The Freestanding Algorithmic Stablecoin
