According to a report by market research company Coin Metrics, 80% of all Tether tokens are stored in just 318 addresses, Bloomberg reported yesterday.
Coin Metrics co-founder Nic Carter has highlighted that some of these addresses belong to cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and Bitfinex.
The situation of bitcoin is quite different, since while 80% of the stablecoin's total supply is reportedly controlled by only 318 addresses, whales only own a 20% of its supply.
However, even though bitcoin tokens seem to be distributed more homogeneously, the decisions made by these whales can have a very important effect on bitcoin's price.
John Griffin, professor of finance at the University of Texas at Austin, suggests that Tether owners were responsible for the 2017 rally that drove bitcoin to $20,000.
The crypto community has repeatedly questioned Tether's reputation and transparency. Many market players doubt that the crypto is actually backed by real dollars, as the issuer of the token assures. Besides, many experts have suggested several times that Tether could be related to bitcoin's volatility.
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