Hello Steemians, I welcome you all to another great week in the crypto academy. The previous lessons have become an eye opener about the cryptocurrency industry and I thank crypto academy for this wonderful opportunity. Today's lesson was delivered by professor @yohan2on on stable coins. Professor yohan2on did a great job in making this lesson an informative one. My assignment for this lesson will be on USDT stable coin.

Introduction

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Due to high volatility nature of cryptocurrency, most investors are now skeptical about investing in cryptocurrency. This was as a result of market bleed after 2017 where Bitcoin went down to -50% after reaching it's all time high of $19,000. After the incident, the demand for stablecoins boomed as investors who want to back up their investment in crypto space needs a low volatility cryptocurrency to protect them against market crashes.
Stablecoins are low volatility cryptocurrency pegged to other asset with a stable value. Stablecoins aim at providing cryptocurrency price stabilisation against the high volatility of cryptocurrency. There are more than 50 stablecoins projects in the cryptocurrency industry which include USDT, BUSD, PAX, Maker/DAI, TUSD etc.

Tether

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Tether is a stablecoin pegged to the USD. USDT is not influenced by the markets daily fluctuations or demand. Similarly, USDT is not affected by the high volatility of cryptocurrency even when there is a market similar to late March 2020 due to Covid-19. During the market crash, BTC surged to $3500 making investors lose almost 70% of the assets, but USDT says remains stable despite the economic situation of the market.

Unique features of Tether

Pegged to USD:

USDT is guaranteed to be to the USD. Tether has it's reserve for backing up US dollar each time USDT is issued out. This making USDT backed up by cash.

low volatility:

The high volatility in the cryptocurrency can make a coin to lose a value 30% in in some hours. USDT have become a save haven for investors to protect them against this high volatility in the market. I can remember a friend of who predicted the economic crash as Covid-19 was emerging. He converted all his portfolio to USDT to protect him against the market crash. After the crash in March 2020, he bought back the coins making a profit almost 600% profit from that.

Easy means of transactions:

USDT serves a simple means of transacting USD equivalent globally without the stress and difficulties using the traditional banks. This feature is mostly unique to those in the developing countries where PayPal and other means of transferring USD is restricted.

Tether value

The worth is Tether is always $1 in the market. Though there's volatility in the price of Tether but it's very low compared to other cryptocurrency. Date back to 2015 when Tether started trading in exchanges, we have seen fluctuations in price but this fluctuation haven't deviated by more than 10cent. The picture below shows the monthly chart of USDT/USD on Tradingview. We can observe that the Tether worth haven't really changed more than 10cent since 2015.

This price stability in Tether have made it a save haven for investors against market crash and volatility.

Technical overview of USDT

USDT is currently ranked 4th in the coinmarket cap with a total supply of 39.04 billion and a circulating supply of 38.52 Billion. Well, since USDT claimed to reserve an equivalent USD of any USDT issued, this means that Tether has $39 billion in reserve. Although investors are sceptical about this claim because it haven't been audited by any third party.
From the picture above, USDT have reached an all time high of $1.02 and all time low of $0.985. The return of invest in USDT since 2015 is 0.04% which is very poor for investment consideration. Tether is a stablecoin with almost zero volatility, so it's not a means of investment to investors but a safe haven to protect the high volatility of the crypto market.

Tether Network

Tether doesn't have it's own blockchain. It's serves as a second layer token built on other cryptocurrency blockchain through the use of Omni blockchain protocol. Tether was originally named realcoin built on Bitcoin block but have updated to work on other cryptocurrency block chains after renaming the project Tether.

Tether wallets

Because of Tethers compatibility to other cryptocurrency blockchain. USDT can be used in a hot or cold wallet. The ranges of wallets that accommodate Tether includes:

• Coinbase wallet
  -Trust wallet
  -Omni wallet
  -Tether wallet
  -Tronlink wallet
  -Trezor wallet
  -Atomic wallet etc.

Exchanges where Tether can be traded

Tether can be traded on almost every exchange because of its high acceptability feature in the market. The picture below shows the watchlist on tradingview of major cryptocurrency exchange that lists USDT.

USDT can be used to exchange any other cryptocurrency including other stablecoins. There are more than 50 cryptocurrencies paired with USDT in Binance exchange.Example of some of the coins paired with USDT in Binance exchange is shown in the picture below.

In conclusion, Tether have become the most versatile and traded stablecoin in the cryptocurrency. It serves as a safe haven for investors protecting their assets against the high volatility of cryptocurrency. The important of USDT cannot be over emphasised in the cryptocurrency market. Though there are still other stable coins that pose to be better than USDT like PAX, BUSD, TUSD, USDC.

Thank you professor @yohan2on for this amazing lesson.

Special thanks:
Cc:@steemcurator01
Cc:@steemcurator02
Cc:@yohan2on
Cc:@trafalgar