January 8, 2020: Tether Trepidations 🤑💸

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Here are today’s trends to watch from Curve Market Cap:

They say nothing in life is certain except death, taxes, and FUD about Tether. The stablecoin, now the third largest in the world has managed to always regain its peg for 6.5 years and reach a market cap of $23 billion.

Crypto vets often attribute a sudden pump in cryptocurrency prices to Tether printing, and the eye-popping bull market we’re currently experiencing is again reviving these calls. Particularly noteworthy is an upcoming January 15th court deadline.

Jacob Oracle @JacobOracle

Tether Price Manipulation Thread: Tether has been manipulating #Bitcoin's price upwards for years now by printing unlimited, and unbacked $USDT. This thread will cover the controversial aspects surrounding Tether, and how it will eventually meet its demise.

Patrick Jane @pat_jane_crypto

1/ Ever since my #tether thread, crypto diehards have alleged that Tether printing is just market-driven. More investors = more demand = more #tether being generated. There is no strong evidence for this. In fact, in this thread, I argue the complete opposite. 👇

Unsurprisingly, Tether’s team disputes these concerns:

Stuart Hoegner @bitcoinlawyer

More baseless speculation. First, what "emergency?" The 354 Order was issued in April 2019. Second, the injunction -- which is currently set to expire on January 15th -- addressed any concerns NYAG purported to have. @Tether_to

Crypto Inside Trader @BTCinsidetrader

#Tether likely to be handed an Emergency Cease and Desist Order in the coming days mandating the issuance of $USDT be halted.

We’re not wise enough to know exactly what’s going on here. What we can do is observe how this debate is affecting Curve. At the micro level, the Tether pool has gone nuts lately, leaping to a 43.3% daily APY on trading fees.

At the macro level, if Tether collapsed, this could be a cataclysmic moment for the entire DeFi space. The existence of Tether is pivotal to the entire cryptocurrency space. Could the activity simply be shifted to another stablecoin? Consider that the next largest stablecoin, USDC, has a market cap of $4.5B, less than 20% of Tether.

If you’re interested in learning more, check out this thread in the Curve forums.

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