Stablecoin firm Tether and its affiliate exchange Bitfinex anticipate a lawsuit alleging that Tether token (USDT) is involved in market manipulation as the result of an unpublished paper. Tether and Bitfinex to defend its position On Oct. 5, both Tether and Bitfinex published statements claiming that they had become aware of an unreleased paper “falsely positing that Tether issuances are responsible for manipulating the cryptocurrency market.” Both firms argued that findings and conclusions claimed by that unpublished source relies on “flawed assumptions, incomplete and cherry-picked data, and faulty methodology.” Both announcements likewise refer to the paper as “non-peer reviewed.” Tether …

Blockchains produce huge amounts of data and it seemed that only data scientists and blockchain research firms like Chainalysis and CipherTrace were making use of it. Recently, crypto investors like Willy Woo and Philip Swift have begun to incorporate on-chain data into their rigorous Bitcoin analyses and the results have been astounding. Despite these efforts, on-chain data remains something of an enigma amongst crypto investors. To clear up the confusion, Cointelegraph decided to sit down with Rafael Schultze-Kraft, the co-founder of on-chain market intelligence platform Glassnode. Cointelegraph: Let’s start with having you tell us a little about yourself and what …

Cryptocurrency exchange OKEx plans to launch Tether (USDT) futures margin trading in October, the firm confirmed in an email to Cointelegraph on Sept. 23. An OKEx spokesperson said that Tether futures are scheduled to be launched next month, though the exact launch date has not been set as of yet. They explained: “We are planning to launch USDT margin futures. But at this stage, we are aiming to launch in October and still pending on the exact launch schedule.” As Cointelegraph reported earlier today, OKEx has refuted fresh allegations of manipulative practices such as wash trading on its platform. Crypto …

The operator of leading stablecoin USDT, Tether, minted 300 million USDT in a swap from the Bitcoin-based (BTC) tokenization protocol Omni to Ethereum, but the corresponding burn has not yet taken place. Whale Alert, a twitter account dedicated to reporting big cryptocurrency transactions, pointed out the coinage described above in a tweet published on Sept. 12. In a second tweet submitted as an answer to the first one, Whale Alert gave an explanation of the nature of the transaction: “This USDT mint is part of a swap. The corresponding burn on Omni has not taken place yet.” Blockchain swap seemingly …

The 24-hour trading volume of major cryptocurrency exchange Binance’s futures markets has exceeded $150 million denominated in Tether (USDT). On Sept. 10, a Reddit user published their findings on Binance’s futures markets performance. Over the past 24 hours of trading, the figures reached notable volumes in the Bitcoin (BTC)/USDT pairing, bringing the daily trading volume to over $151 million in USDT. Closed testing mode Binance initially launched two futures testnet platforms named Futures A and Futures B on Sept. 2, inviting users to participate in a 10,000 Binance Coin (BNB) trading competition. During the competition, Binance said it would provide …

Stablecoin firm Tether announced the launch of a new stablecoin tied to the offshore Chinese yuan dubbed CNHT. According to an announcement on Sept. 9, Tether CNHT is pegged to the offshore yuan and available as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. The new currency joins Tether’s other stablecoins backed by U.S. dollars (USDT) and euro (EURT). What is the offshore Yuan? China’s national currency is officially called the renminbi. The currency’s unit is called the yuan, of which there are two kinds: offshore and onshore. The main difference between the two is that the offshore yuan can be …

Crypto exchange Bitfinex shareholder Zhao Dong has claimed that sister firm Tether plans to release a version of the stablecoin backed by a basket of commodities such as gold, crude oil and rubber. In private correspondence with Cointelegraph on Sept. 3, Dong said that the idea of issuing Tether (USDT) pegged to a commodities basket was being mooted in order to mitigate the risks associated with keeping large amounts of funds deposited in banks. “Tether is backed at least 83.75% by USD” Aside from the commodity stablecoin news, Dong commented on the long-standing controversy regarding Tether’s flagship USD-pegged stablecoin and …

Binance has launched two futures testnet platforms — inviting users to participate in a 10,000 Binance Coin (BNB) trading competition. Two promotions during testing The major crypto exchange has launched two futures trading platforms named Futures A and Futures B in testing mode — allowing customers to participate in a simulated trading competition, Binance announced on its website on Sept. 2. According to the announcement, Binance will award winners with a total of 10,000 BNB, worth about $216,000 at publishing time. During the competition, Binance will provide all participants with 100,000 Tether tokens (USDT) in simulated funds on both Binance …

Major crypto exchange Binance will launch its first crypto lending product on Aug. 28, 2019. According to an official announcement on Aug. 26, holders of Binance Coin (BNB), Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Tether (USDT) will be able to lend their assets and earn interest through Binance’s new service called Binance Lending. The services will be available for subscription from Aug. 28 till Aug. 29, Binance noted in the announcement. Lending products will have an initial 14-day period. BNB will have the highest annualized interest rate of 15% while the rates for USDT and ETC amount to 10% and 7%, respectively. …

New research from Augmento suggests a forward correlation between Tether sentiment, market capitalization and price, which could be manipulated or exploited to create arbitrage opportunities. It hypothesizes that Tether sentiment could therefore provide a signal for traders in a blog post published Aug. 22. Sentiment correlation with market cap Augmento notes that Tether sentiment does not appear normal. Comparing positive and negative sentiment shows that negative sentiment dominates, with extreme spikes of intense discussion when news breaks, before dropping quickly away. When considering this alongside changes in market cap and price, it found a foreshadowing effect. A move in market …

Binance is expected to launch its upcoming exchange platform in the United States by the end of the year, with the company’s executive estimating that the platform will launch within “a month or two.” In the interview, Changpeng Zhao (aka CZ), the CEO of Binance, predicted the launch despite acknowledging that many things are still “in flux” regarding the platform’s planned operations in the U.S. CZ noted that the U.S. has historically enacted “very clear regulations” regarding financial technology, adding his expectation that despite current “uncertainties in the regulatory space,” early adopters in the industry will likely be better rewarded. …

Stablecoin operator Tether plans to issue a Chinese yuan-backed stablecoin, local industry media ChainNews reports on Aug. 21. Tether to issue a renminbi-pegged stablecoin Bitfinex shareholder Zhao Dong informed the outlet that Tether — the stablecoin operator behind USDT — plans to issue a new stablecoin in the near future. It would be backed by Chinese yuan held in offshore accounts under the CNHT ticker. Zhao also reportedly said that his digital asset management platform RenrenBit would be the first to invest in the project. He also pointed out that Tether and cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex are in a side-by-side relationship …