Some people think bitcoin’s spectacular price rise last year was manipulated by a cryptotoken called Tether that’s supposed to be pegged to the US dollar.
Now, an anonymous report answers the question: What would bitcoin be worth without Tether? The answer: around $4,500, based on the current bitcoin price of about $7,600.
Tether is a crypto token, or coin, that’s supposed to be pegged to the dollar and backed by real dollar reserves in a bank account somewhere. Tether’s coins are often used for dollars on cryptocurrency exchanges because of the reserve claim.
Traders use Tether’s coins to cash in and out of bitcoin quickly, avoiding the lengthy process of converting the sums in and out of fiat currency. However, Tether hasn’t provided audits to prove its reserves exist.
The uncertainty surrounding Tether has made crypto investors uneasy, an unease that became alarm when Bloomberg reported that Tether was subpoenaed by the US commodities trading regulator in December. Bitcoin’s price has fallen about 25% since that news broke.
A group of investors called the 1000X Group, who look for the next big crypto hit, recently commissioned a report to determine Tether’s influence on the bitcoin price.
Based on publicly available information, the report found that bitcoin’s price rose about 40% in the two-hour windows after each batch of newly issued Tether coins arrived at the exchange Bitfinex’s digital wallet, between last April and this January.
The author claims anonymity because of fear of “backlash” from expressing an “unpopular opinion.”
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This is both interesting and frightening, showing how a coin can be volatile and depend on some other factor. If this is true Bitcoin would be some kind of scam.
well bit coin itself would not be a scam, creating tether without backing it with dollars would be scammy
Of course but could we really be sure Tether is backed with dollars ? With what we've witnessed recently you can't really be convinced. And by the way, don't you think we should have been informed from the beginning about this kind of link ? I'm tempted to ask myself "what else are they hiding from us" ? So in that way it can be scammy, you're right, maybe Bitcoin is not a scam, but it can be turned into something close to it by doing such "manipulations" behind our backs.
I think tether is screwing around, something seems wrong, it doesn’t look well for the industry when crap like that happens
I agree there's something with tether, it suddenly appears inside the top 15 coins out of literally nowhere, I'm sure it is being manipulated in its trading volume to rise to such a place, cause of course it is staying and oscillating at 1 $, it is its main purpose, for what, we don't know yet
A group of investors called the 1000X Group, who look for the next big crypto hit, recently commissioned a report to determine Tether’s influence on the bitcoin price.
"Based on publicly available information, the report found that bitcoin’s price rose about 40% in the two-hour windows after each batch of newly issued Tether coins arrived at the exchange Bitfinex’s digital wallet, between last April and this January." interesting