UPDATED 21:30 EDT / DECEMBER 18 2018

BLOCKCHAIN

Bank statements show Tether did hold adequate US dollar reserves

Controversial stablecoin Tether may be partially in the clear after bank statements obtained by Bloomberg and published today show that the company did hold adequate U.S. dollar reserves against its value for a critical period in 2017 and early 2018.

Tether, which is owned by cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, operates as a stablecoin. That’s a cryptocurrency that holds a stable value so it can be used as an intermediary between crypto transactions.

Tether quickly rose to be the largest stablecoin on the market and one of the largest cryptocurrencies, becoming central to those trading in bitcoin on global markets.

The drama surrounding Tether, in this case, relates to accusations that dollars were not held in reserve. In January the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission was looking into whether Tether had U.S. dollars in reserve to back its value. Bitfinex claimed that it does hold U.S. dollars in reserve, but others alleged that it doesn’t.

Bloomberg has obtained banks statements spanning four separate months that detail the cash held in Tether Ltd.’s accounts. They show that for those periods, there were sufficient funds held against the value of Tether.

“One statement shows $2.2 billion was in Tether’s account at Puerto Rico’s Noble Bank Ltd. on Jan. 31. That same day, 2.195 billion Tethers existed,” the report said. “The numbers also match up in September and October 2017.”

The report did note that four months of statements does not necessarily mean that Tether always had sufficient funds held against the value of Tether, but it certainly proves that it did during the periods covered. The current status of the CTFC investigation is unknown.

Both Tether and Bitfinex still face other issues as well. The Department of Justice launched an investigation a criminal probe in November into allegations that Tether was used to manipulate the price of bitcoin.

Although the so-called “Santa Claus Rally” in the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies started yesterday, the news that Tether may be in the clear in regards to the CTFC investigation has added more festive cheer to markets.

Bitcoin continued its rally today, up 5 percent, to $3,683.14, as of 9:20 p.m. EST. Ethereum was up 9.7 percent over the last 24-hours, while the standout was Bitcoin Cash, up 25 percent.

Image: 30478819@N08/Flickr

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU