IS TETHER A SCAM?!? // Crypto News Today // Bitcoin Price Update
Today we have a Daily Token Review and three really awesome cryptocurrency news segments to share with you from the USDT stablecoin to Brave, the crypto-powered browser, to cryptocurrencies disrupting the work of finance.
As seen on CoinMarketCap, we’ve got a lot of greens on the market, — it appears as though the bulls currently have the upper hand overall. The world’s flagship cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC) has increased by 1.81 percent. Ether (ETH) still maintains its “second in command” status, with an increase of 3.02 percent. Ripple’s XRP maintains the number three position, and it’s currently gaining by 0.76 percent. But what do we have here? Bitcoin Cash has increased by 9.08 percent? While it’s not exactly so clear why Bitcoin Cash has surged so high, strong Bitcoin Cash supporter Roger Ver predicts that the coin could surpass Ethereum on the crypto scale. Hmmm.. Bitcoin Cash has potential, but to surpass Ethereum, I’m not so sure.
Now, if I scroll down to the top 20, we’re also having a mixture of a pretty lush and green market with some shades of red across the board. There are all pretty general increases across the top 20, but woah, Tezos, shooting 21.57 percent? That’s crazy!
According to CryptoBriefing, it looks like Tezos is the most profitable staking token! According to new data, Tezos (XTZ) offers the highest returns of any PoS cryptocurrency, at more than 7.3% per year. The cryptocurrency research firm Messari found that the yield for staking Tezos was significantly higher than seven comparable coins. Will the good times last? It’s unlikely but looks like Coinbase Custody, and other providers are keen to bring in institutional investors to stake the token as well.
Now onto the news! According to a report by Cryptoslate, Tether, the firm behind the largest stablecoin by market capitalization has minted fresh USDT stablecoins worth nearly $400 million and crypto market observers have accused the firm of trying to manipulate the markets, also alleging that Tether’s coins are not backed at 1:1 with the U.S dollars, as the firm used to claim.
Reportedly, Tether has been minting new uncollateralized USDT coins since April 8, 2019, increasing the circulating supply of USDT by a staggering $417 million over the past month.
The latest shady move by the Tether team was first revealed via Twitter by Bitfinexed, a platform that’s in charge of investigating wrongdoings in the Tether and Bitfinex ecosystems. “Tether is once again injecting the cryptocurrency markets with nearly $400M of fake money. They’ve recently admitted it’s not backed by dollars, but so-called ‘reserves’. Last time they injected this much fake money, we found out the market crashed,” tweeted Bitfinexed.
It’s worth noting that this is not the first time that Tether is being criticized for unlawful practices. In 2018, the University of Texas professor, John Griffin and co-author Amin Shams revealed in a research report that Tether is guilty of manipulating the price of bitcoin.
In an interview with Bloomberg at the time, Griffin declared that: “First, Tethers are created by the parent company Tether Ltd., often in large chunks such as 200 million. Almost all new coins then move to Bitfinex. When the price of bitcoin drops soon after the issuance, Tethers at Bitfinex and other exchanges are used to buy bitcoin ‘in a coordinated way that boosts the price.”
While the newly issued USDT may serve as a huge boost for the price of bitcoin, it could also prove to be very lethal, especially if crypto investors lose confidence in the USDT stablecoin. Since the firm recently updated its terms of service, making it clear that Tether (USDT) is not backed entirely by the US dollar and it’s not responsible for losses that may arise from holding USDT.
Now, onto the second news item for today! Leading mass media platform, the Los Angeles Times, which is reportedly the fourth most circulated newspaper in the United States, with a massive readership of more than 30 million, has joined the cryptocurrency bandwagon by becoming a verified publisher on the Basic Attention Token (BAT) powered Brave browser. Now, what does this mean for both the LA Times and the Brave browser teams? With the latest milestone, readers of the LA Times publications will now be able to tip the firm in BAT Token. In other words, The LA Times will now start receiving decent rewards for its quality content.
On the other hand, this latest addition to the Brave browser publishers’ community goes a long way to show that the cryptocurrency-powered project is now gaining huge traction globally and it’s just a matter of time before the Brave Browser surpasses other direct competitors like Google Chrome which currently has the largest Android market share. For those who are unaware, Brave Browser now has a larger Android market share than the Opera and Puffin web browsers.
According to data available on BATGrowth, the platform that monitors the Brave Browser and Basic Attention Token, Brave Browser now has more than 84,000 publishers, and at this rate, there is no doubt that the project will send the price of BAT to the moon shortly.
Now, onto the third news item for today! Per a report by The Daily Hodl, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Largarde has acknowledged the fact that bitcoin and other blockchain-based virtual currencies are now disrupting the traditional financial sector and as such there is a need to regulate the industry in a way that would foster stability, encourage innovation and protect investors. In a recent interview with CNBC, Lagarde made it clear that blockchain-based firms entering the traditional financial world must be regulated to ensure the system remains stable.
In her words: “I think the role of the disruptors and anything that is using distributed ledger technology (DLT), whether you call it crypto, assets, currencies, or whatever…that is clearly shaking the [financial] system. We don’t want innovation that would disrupt the system so much that we would lose the stability that is needed. They must be held accountable so that they can be trusted completely.”
Interestingly, in a Twitter poll conducted by the IMF on April 10, 2019, 56 percent of respondents said they see bitcoin and altcoins being used for everyday payments more than traditional payment methods in five years, a strong indication that many people are beginning to believe the gospel of cryptocurrency.
So what are your thoughts on this situation?
Are you confident that Tether will continue to remain valuable as the largest stablecoin on the market, despite the criticisms?
Do you think that Brave Browser has all it takes to become the number one web browser in the world soon?
Do you think cryptos will entirely disrupt the world’s financial system in the coming years?
Let me know what you guys think? If you liked the content please subscribe and watch our latest videos.
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Disclaimer: Cryptopig content is written by a team of blockchain passionate people. We are not registered as investment advisors. Don’t take the information in this post as investment advice and make sure you do your own research before investing. Cryptocurrencies are a very risky investment, never invest more money than you can afford to lose.