Kraken cryptocurrency exchange has reacted to the article recently published by Bloomberg, which claims that trading platform manipulated tether - a tokenized doppelganger of the U.S. dollar (USDT). Kraken has hit out at journalists claiming they are trying to speculate on the price of bitcoin.
Why it is important
- Representatives of the exchange hinted that the article was intended to put additional pressure on bitcoin’s rate and, consequently, to increase profit on short positions.
- Bloomberg journalists in their article have voiced a suspicion that Kraken manipulated the market by conducting a large number of micro deals with tether tokens.
However, company representatives in their blog wrote that the authors of the recently published article were guided only by their own selfish goals.
"...the Bloomberg News piece was published on June 29th, the last business day of trading for Q2, and expiration date of numerous futures contracts. It raises red flags."- said Kraken in its statement.
In an article published on June 29, Bloomberg asked financial regulators to pay attention to the turnover of tether tokens on Kraken platform. Journalists claim that a large number of small transactions with USDT could not be made by real people, and this had an effect on the rate of the token.
The exchange, however, said that its market share in tether is simply not high enough to achieve any kind of impact.
“Kraken offers only one market on USDT (USDT/USD). Between our competitors, there are over 400 other traded markets on USDT and Kraken represents less than 0.1% of aggregate daily USDT volume. As much as we pride ourselves on the level of recognition we enjoy in the industry, we sadly cannot claim to be the arbiters of the price of USDT.”
The exchange also claims that Bloomberg failed to fathom some of the concepts like “arbitrage, order books and currency pegs”. The exchange added that all trading deals were recorded and that snapshots of order books are available to the public through the trade panel or an Application programming interface (API).
By Nadya Astam