The crypto exchange Binance temporarily suspended stablecoin Tether’s withdrawal this Monday. According to the information on the portal, the technical works took half an hour and were caused by the need to process the requests that had accumulated against the background of increased volumes. Later, the ability to output Tether with Binance was restored. Binance Telegram сommunity administrator has written about the congestion of USDT network.
Earlier, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao urged the community not to trust the news about delisting Tether from the exchange. He retweeted a message that misinforms about this event. A user under the nickname “boxmining” writes that this is an obvious fake, so the platform is very politically correct and will never write about the coin being a scam. The Binance pseudo-message contains a copied paragraph from a real announcement of the exchange about delisting four crypto assets last week.
FAKE: Saw this floating around and it's an obvious fake. Binance is VERY politically correct and will never write "Tether big scam" (it doesn't even make grammatical sense). This is just as bad as the "Vitalik is dead" scam last year. @cz_binance @binance pic.twitter.com/bd9Anvclmt
— boxmining (@boxmining) October 15, 2018
But many more questions in connection with the falling rate of Tether have been caused by the crypto exchange Bitfinex. Earlier, the site suspended accepting deposits in US dollars. Investors felt that the crypto exchange could have problems due to the fact that HBSC bank blocked the private account through which the exchange worked. Rumors about the insolvency of Bitfinex persisted. However, the company denied this information and reported that it faces certain difficulties when working with fiat, but is trying to make the deposit and withdrawal of funds as comfortable as possible.
Later, a representative of the crypto exchange Kasper Rasmussen confirmed the information on the suspension of receiving fiat currencies. And today the platform has released a detailed explanation. The company confirmed that it decided to pause fiat deposits for “certain customers in the face of processing complications”. At the same time, the platform explained that fiat withdrawals remained open for the entire period and continue to operate as normal. Bitfinex representatives said that in the coming days, the exchange plans to launch a new system that will allow to resume accepting fiat deposits.
The USDT, meanwhile, continues to trade below the U.S. dollar, to which its rate is pegged, and stands at the time of this writing, $0.964600 (17.00 GMT + 1). The wave of rumors about the possible insolvency of Tether issuer and the proliferation of regulated stablecoins have probably lead to the fact that traders are getting rid of the asset, putting negative pressure on its price.
Tether Ltd. It is a Bitfinex related company. Chainanalysis experts conducted a study and found that the newly issued USDT coins come first to Bitfinex. After that, 80% of the coins are moved directly to several exchanges accepting USDT.
Today, the price of bitcoin (Bitcoin) has shown rapid growth, at some point approaching close to $7,800 on Bitfinex. At the same time, the USDT rate fell by 6% against the U.S. dollar, to which it is theoretically pegged at a 1:1 ratio. The cost of the token pegged to the U.S. dollar dropped to $ 0.92. At the same time, the total capitalization of the cryptomarket has risen by $16 billion, and the price of bitcoin has reached a monthly maximum. It is worth noting that the cost of the stablecoin fell at the same time as the KuCoin announced the suspension of USDT services. Then the exchange returned to normal operation, and the cost of altcoin rose to $0.95, which is 5% lower than the required price of $1.
Crypto analysts believe that stablecoin’s fall has several reasons. Problems with the banks servicing Tether Ltd are reasonably worrisome for traders. As a result, they sell USDT to buy bitcoin (Bitcoin: BITCOIN) and ethereum (ETH/USD). Also, crypto traders began to sell USDT in order to acquire new audited and adjustable stablecoins, such as Gemini USD and PAX. These assets seem more promising and safer.
At the same time, the opinions of crypto experts on the current situation were divided. Some think all the rumors about Bitfinex are nothing more than a speculation and it’s not worth making negative conclusions about the future of the site. Others on the contrary are sure that this is the sunset of the crypto platform.
“Tether is not the first time becoming a target for fake news. Those who manipulated information and the course of the coin found the most suitable moment with the least liquidity in the market when the number of fiat deposits is minimal,” Alexey Kirienko, the founder of Exante, commented on the situation.
Analyst Joseph Young is one of those who do not believe in the future of Bitfinex. He is confident that the platform "shot itself in the foot".
It's truly mindboggling to see what Bitfinex has done with Tether and its exchange.
— Joseph Young (@iamjosephyoung) October 15, 2018
Bitfinex could have been one of the most valuable billion dollar companies in crypto. Yet, it threw out the opportunity out the window and shot itself on the foot.
Bye @bitfinex RIP 🙏
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