Saturday, Dec. 15: the top 20 cryptocurrencies report a mix of moderate gains and losses, with Bitcoin (BTC) briefly dipping under $3,200 before climbing back above the price mark by press time. Market visualization from Coin360 Bitcoin started the day around $3,228, but after a mid-day high of $3,275, it fell back to the current price of $3,232, after touching its lowest point of $3,191 earlier today. At press time, Bitcoin is down a fraction of a percent over the last 24 hours. On the weekly chart, the prices in the past two days have been the lowest, down from …

According to analysis by research firm Diar published Dec. 10, the adoption of stablecoins is growing based on the increasing number of on-chain transactions. Per Diar, four major stablecoins to date — USDC, True USD (TUSD), Paxos (PAX) and the Gemini dollar (GUSD) — have broken the $5 billion mark in on-chain transactions within the three-month period. November reportedly saw a massive 1,032 percent surge in on-chain transactions compared to September, when the stablecoin market breached the $2.3 billion mark at the end of last month. Diar notes that Paxos has recorded over $1.8 billion on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain …

Popular stablecoin Tether has announced 1:1 redemptions of USDT to fiat, while affiliated crypto exchange Bitfinex added two new Tether-fiat trading pairs, according to announcements from both firms Tuesday, Nov. 27. Tether announced the direct redemption of Tether to fiat along with a major redesign of its platform for the verification of new customers. According to the official announcement, the update allows users to redeem their tokens on the Tether.to platform at a USDT to fiat ratio of 1:1. All Tether deposits and withdrawals are zero-fee, while fiat transfers are are subject to commissions. Tether customers will be limited to …

Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance has renamed its Tether (USDT) Market to be a combined Stablecoin Market (USDⓈ), according to an announcement published Nov. 26. This will purportedly allow the exchange to support more trading pairs of stablecoins. The exchange also notes that USDⓈ is not a new stablecoin, but the symbol of Binance’s new stablecoin market. Binance will deliver a separate announcement about what exact pairs will be moved or added to this market. The move follows the Nov. 15 announcement that Binance would start listing blockchain payment company Circle’s USD-pegged stablecoin USD Coin (USDC). Prior to that, Binance added …

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has focused its investigation crypto market manipulation on whether or not Tether (USDT) was used to artificially inflate Bitcoin (BTC) prices during last year’s momentous rally, Bloomberg reports Nov. 20. Bloomberg cites three unnamed sources “familiar with the matter” who allege that the DoJ has “honed in” on the triad of Bitcoin, Tether, and its affiliated crypto exchange Bitfinex — the latter two of which share a CEO, Jan Ludovicus van der Velde. The sources have reportedly alleged that the DoJ is looking into how Tether issues its new tokens and why the majority …

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision In the year of bear markets and curbed enthusiasm, stablecoins have emerged as the asset class with which many of the crypto community associate high hopes for the long-anticipated mass adoption. As these cryptocurrencies have come to be viewed as a promising tool to alleviate volatility – presumably the major hurdle in the way of digital assets becoming a vehicle of everyday transactions for millions of consumers – they enjoy massive media coverage, community …

Malware researcher Lukas Stefanko has found four fake cryptocurrency wallets on the Google Play Store that were trying to steal users’ personal data, according to a blog post published Nov. 13. The apps were posing as cryptocurrency wallets for NEO, Tether and an extension for accessing Ethereum (ETH), MetaMask. They were purportedly designed to phish users’ mobile banking credentials and credit card information. Stefanko classified the wallets into two groups, wherein the fake MetaMask app was a “phishing wallet” and the other three apps were “fake wallets.” Once the phishing app is installed and launched, it requests the user's private …

Brazilian law enforcement has solicited the help of Bahamian authorities to investigate suspicious transactions to Deltec Bank & Trust – the recently-announced new banking partner of controversial stablecoin Tether (USDT) – major Brazilian newspaper O Globo reports Nov. 6. As per the report, the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office in São Paulo is on the trail of Paulo Vieira de Souza, a former director of the São Paulo road infrastructure company DERSA. De Souza is currently being prosecuted for bribery in the infamous Odebrecht case, characterized by the U.S. government as “the largest foreign bribery case in history.” As explained by …

The issuer of cryptographic stablecoin Tether (USDT) announced it had found a new banking partner in a statement Nov. 1, confirming rumors it would use Bahamas-based Deltec Bank & Trust. Tether, which had suffered from mixed publicity after allegations it had parted ways with previous financial institution Noble Bank, also noted in the statement that its full money supply was backed by US dollars. “USDT in the market are fully backed by US dollars that are safely deposited in our bank accounts,” the statement reads. Despite the deal being de facto common knowledge for several weeks, Tether explained Deltec agreed …

Monday, Oct. 29: Crypto markets are seeing the first momentum in a while after a period of marked stability: virtually all of the major cryptocurrencies are in the red today, with some seeing losses of between a 4-6 percent range, as Coin360 data shows. Market visualization by Coin360 Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $6,352 at press time, seeing an almost 2 percent loss on the day according to CoinMarketCap. Having traded sideways throughout the week, the top coin today saw a vertiginous price drop, plummeting from its $6,480 trading range down to around $6,350 in the couple of hours before …

Tether, issuer of stablecoin USDT, says it has “redeemed a significant amount” of tokens from the circulating supply and will now “destroy” 500 million USDT from the Tether treasury wallet, in an official post published Oct. 24. According to the firm, this will leave 446 million USDT remaining in its treasury in preparation for future USDT issuances — meaning that those tokens redeemed and “burned” account for 52.8 percent of the total former supply. The redemption is visible on the OMNI blockchain explorer, which shows a confirmed transaction dated today of 500 million USDT in block 547155. Tether’s announcement directs …

Major crypto exchange Bitfinex has responded to a recent media report that accused the exchange of publishing trading volume data from “a market that doesn’t exist,” in a tweet posted Oct. 23. The controversy centers on an article from crypto media outlet CoinDesk, which had alleged that Bitfinex’s data on popular crypto statistics aggregator CoinMarketCap (CMC) was misleadingly inflated by reporting on a stablecoin Tether (USDT)-U.S. dollar trading pair, which as of press time appears to account for $33,598,474 — or 18.30 percent — of a total 24-hour traded volume of $182,742,351. The article had argued that since the exchange …