Bitcoin unfazed by Tether theft scandal

Bitcoin continued its steady pace upward despite news that could have frightened away investors.

After the massive "hack" that resulted in $31 million disappearing from Tether reserves earlier this week, investors continued with their usual business of dedicating more fiat to Bitcoin. Part of the reason the market was unaffected may have been that Tether acted quickly to lock down the stolen funds and prevented their circulation into the market.

Some longer-term hodlers of Bitcoin may have harkened back to the time of the Mt. Gox fiasco that devastated the Bitcoin economy, sending it into a depression for about a year. However, this incident with Tether was on a much smaller scale. When the Mt. Gox exchange shut down, it was handling around 70% of all bitcoin transactions, and lost $450 million worth of Bitcoin at the time (worth far, far more now!). So, it's clear to see that the Tether incident was nowhere near this scale with a "mere" $31 million lost.

As time goes on and Bitcoin reaches greater volumes of traders, it will become more and more stable. The market is relatively tiny now, and thus is more susceptible to swings caused by emotion and panic. Even so, based on this most recent incident, Bitcoin is showing signs of maturing.

sources:
68.media.tumblr.com/89ccedde4c4197610ac41d205669f661/tumblr_inline_onkfwmzagm1t0tbub_540.png
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox