So, is it Bitfinex/Tether related manipulation, or is it genuine supply and demand?
According to [1] (2018) , actually getting down to the metal to track what happens in the tether blockchain isn't straightforward.
According to coincap [2] there is around 20B tether in circulation.
Also according to coincap, the Bitcoin market cap is around 380B.
Now, the question is one of market depth: can 20B be used to manipulate a 380B market.
What I would very much like to see is an aggregate market depth number for - say - the top 30 exchanges. Does anyone have a reference for this?
[1] https://hackernoon.com/a-closer-look-at-tethers-blockchain-5...
I think the answer to this is yes, but I’d suggest a further specification: could it be used to manipulate a 380B market without breaking the dollar peg, which I haven’t been able to figure out a good mechanism for.
That said, I do think there’s a reasonably probable case where USDT unraveling is an existential threat to BTC: if a large portion of USDT reserves are actually in BTC, a run on USDT could cause Tether to start needing to sell BTC holdings at market to hold the peg, which would drive the prices down.
AFAIK Tether has not said that it is backed by USD, just by “assets”, and hasn’t completed an audit.
If I have a billion coins, and I sell one for $1, it has a market cap of 1B, but only $1 went into the market.
You can track the Tether issued on Ethereum in real-time by looking at this contract https://etherscan.io/token/0xdac17f958d2ee523a2206206994597c...
Currently over $12.4 billion Tether issued on Ethereum
Last I read up on it, it was implemented on top of Omni [1]
[1] https://hackernoon.com/a-closer-look-at-tethers-blockchain-5...
Are there multiple Blockchains where Tether was issued?
Full stats https://wallet.tether.to/transparency
They still haven't passed an audit, and they've changed the "1USDT is backed by $1" to "1USDT is backed by loans and vaguely defined investments". https://cointelegraph.com/news/changes-to-tethers-terms-of-r...