Price of Tether USDT Plummets to 18-Month Low as OKEx Adds Four Stable Coins

News and Analysis
15.10.2018

The price of the Tether stable coin (USDT) pegged to the US dollar has tanked to an 18-month low on Monday, October 15, pushing the premium of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on Bitfinex and a number of other exchanges.

At its peak, the price of the flagship cryptocurrency achieved $7,788 on Bitfinex, while trading at $6,756 at the very same time on Bitstamp.

The Tether-US dollar exchange rate (USDT/USD) meanwhile fell to $0.925284 at 07:00 UTC – the lowest level since April 27, 2017.

Some reports are putting the price drop down to traders losing faith in the token, amid lack of transparency over Tether’s true USD holdings and rumored issues at partner firm Bitfinex. Whatever the reason for the drop, the traders have likely rotated money out of USDT and into Bitcoin and other stablecoins.

Some analysts also suggest that in the short-term, the sell-off and instability of USDT may seem beneficial for the crypto market due to the increase in the price of most cryptocurrencies. It could also positively affect the crypto market in the long-term as it will likely lead traders to regulated, audited, and transparent alternatives like Gemini Dollar (GUSD), Paxos (PAX), and TrueUSD (TUSD).

Notably enough, some hours after the morning events, Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange OKEx has announced that it is adding four U.S. dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies to its platform for trading.

Rolling out the new additions over Monday and Tuesday, the exchange said that it will list TrustToken’s TrueUSD (TUSD), Circle’s USD Coin (USDC), the Gemini Dollar (GUSD) from the Winklevoss-founded New York exchange and Paxos Standard Token (PAX).

In a similar statement, crypto exchange FCoin said it would add the same stable coins to its platform, though it did not provide a timeline.

At press time, Bitcoin is trading around $6,890 on Bitfinex, and $6,380 on Bitstamp.

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