The supply of the Coinbase-backed stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) has grown by 250% since the start of 2020, including an 80% expansion in just the past two months. After starting the year with a nearly $520 million market cap, USDC now ranks as the 16th-largest crypto asset with a $1.86 billion capitalization — beating out all other major stablecoins except for the $14.5 billion Tether (USDT) by at least four times. Meanwhile, other stablecoins (most of which are pegged to the value of $1 US) have also seen significant growth this year, with DAI and Binance USD expanding by 970% …
Paolo Ardoino, the chief technology officer of Tether and Bitfinex, is confident that Tether will preserve its status as the most used stablecoin, despite the rapid growth of competitors such as USD Coin (USDC). “If you see the volumes of Tether compared to the rest of stablecoins, they are insanely higher. They are even 10 times higher on a bad day,” he pointed out. According to a report from Arcane Research, USDC, the second-largest stablecoin, has been growing at an impressive rate over the last year and could soon overtake Tether in terms of market cap. Ardoino is not worried …
Major stablecoin company Tether is expanding its stablecoin offering with a new cryptocurrency pegged to the British pound sterling (GBP). Tether officially announced on Wednesday that its upcoming GBP-pegged stablecoin, GBPT, will launch in early July and will initially be supported by the Ethereum blockchain. GBPT will be a stable digital currency pegged on the 1:1 ratio to the GBPT, aiming to provide a faster and cheaper option for asset transfers. GBPT joins a family of four other fiat currency-pegged Tether (USDT) tokens, including the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, USDT. Other stablecoins include the euro-pegged EURT, the offshore Chinese …
United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has asked its customers to convert their Tether-issued USDT (USDT) stablecoin to USD Coin (USDC), a USD-pegged stablecoin issued by Circle and co-founded by Coinbase in 2018. The cryptocurrency exchange suggested that USDC is a much more secure alternative in the wake of the FTX collapse saga and has also exempted any fee on the conversion of USDT to USDC on its platform. The firm said: “We believe that USD Coin (USDC) is a trusted and reputable stablecoin, so we’re making it more frictionless to switch: starting today, we’re waiving fees for global retail customers …
Tether (USDT) — the world’s largest stablecoin by market capitalization — has never received any loan from the bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Celsius, according to the chief technology officer. Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether and Bitfinex crypto exchange, took to Twitter on Jan. 31 to announce that Tether has “never borrowed from Celsius.” The tweet came in response to the Celsius bankruptcy examiner report, which allegedly mistakenly implied that Tether was among Celsius’ borrowers alongside firms like Three Arrows Capital, which borrowed $75 million from the firm. Released on Jan. 31, the examiner report mentioned that “Celsius’s loans to Tether were …