Bitfinex Crypto Exchange Moves $1.5M of Stablecoin to Bitcoin Sidechain

Published at: Nov. 3, 2019

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex moved 1 .561 million Tether (USDT) from the Omni Protocol to the Liquid Bitcoin (BTC) sidechain.

Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino announced the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin’s protocol swap on Twitter on Nov. 2.

The conversion increases the quantity of USDT available on the network after the stablecoin was first launched on the Liquid sidechain at the end of July. Ardoino said that the development will have a beneficial effect on the protocol:

“Liquid sidechain has now more liquidity for atomic swaps and cross-exchange arbitrage.”

A sidechain in rapid development

In July, Liquid developer Blockstream launched a new tool that allows users to execute atomic swaps for all assets supported by the Liquid network. In June 2015, Liquid added confidential transactions designed to improve Bitcoin’s user security by keeping sent amounts visible only to participants in the transaction, or other specified parties.

This summer, Blockstream CEO Adam Back announced that Bitcoin users could use the Lightning Network while sending coins on the Liquid sidechain.

In a recent interview, Back was optimistic about the future of Bitcoin sidechains. Back said that they will decrease the appeal of altcoins, as they will bring features of altcoin networks to Bitcoin.

Tether expands from the Omni protocol

Tether was originally developed to operate on the Omni layer of the Bitcoin protocol. Tether states that operating on Omni gives the asset the stability generally associated with Bitcoin.

Since its creation in 2014, Tether has added other transport protocols. The stablecoin is also available on the Ethereum blockchain, which makes it operational in smart contracts and apps on that network. 

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Blockchain
Bitcoin
Cryptocurrency Exchange
Stablecoin
Blockstream
Tether
Bitfinex
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