Bitfinex ‘Chainswaps’ $5M Worth of USDT Onto EOS Protocol

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in conjunction with EOSFinex, its decentralized trading platform, have announced that they had successfully completed a “chainswap” to convert $5 million worth of Tether (USDT) stablecoins onto the EOS blockchain protocol.

According to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Oct. 5, this way the companies aim to “provide the EOS DApp ecosystem with a stable and liquid store of value to reduce the risks pertaining to digital assets' volatility.” Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino added:

“Promising projects aren’t getting the light of day with current congestion and volatility issues on other chains, and that is why there’s higher DApp usage on EOS. What EOS was lacking was a stablecoin that could help these projects manage exposure to price volatility.” 

Next stop — mainnet launch

Per the announcement, EOSIO’s peer-to-peer micropayment infrastructure currently powers 49% of the top 100 decentralized applications (DApps) and seven of the top 10 DApps with the highest 24 hour transaction activity.

Steven Quinn, EOSFinex product lead, noted that now the platform’s next goal is to “work with others in the EOS community to bring block irreversibility times down to 3 seconds” and fully launch EOSFinex on the mainnet.

EOS network can freeze?

At the same time, as Cointelegraph reported on Oct. 4, EOS blockchain protocol users have been experiencing periodic problems with network access within the past few weeks. 

A recent article written by pseudonymous smart contract developer and security engineer Dexaran described the apparent root of the problem: an inexpensive technique that allows hackers to “congest” the network — or put it into a low-efficiency mode — with just a few dollars worth of EOS.

Seemingly, that exploit allowed a hacker to steal more than $110,000 in cryptocurrency from an EOS gambling application EOSPlay earlier in September. However, executives of EOS’s parent firm Block.one are not fazed, arguing that the network is operating “correctly.”

Recently, stablecoin firm Tether and its affiliate exchange Bitfinex have stated that they anticipate a lawsuit alleging that USDT token is involved in market manipulation as the result of yet unpublished research.