Since falling to $3,850 in mid-March, the price of bitcoin recovered more than 90% as it surged above $9,400 on Tuesday.
Following bitcoin, altcoins also surged in value adding more than $90 billion since the price crash. As the price of cryptocurrencies jump back, the activity on the stablecoins is decreasing.
“The number of large transactions (>$100k) for Tether dropped from 1.65k txs on April 2, to only 36 txs yesterday,” noted crypto data tracker IntoTheBlock.
Tether large transactions
Around the second half of March, while the cryptocurrencies have been tanking, fiat pegged stablecoins have been enjoying a surge.
As we reported, the popular stablecoin Tether (USDT) emerged as the winner during this crypto carnage triggered by investors’ fear over the coronavirus pandemic that hit the global markets as well.
This resulted in the market capitalization of Tether increasing by 38%, about $2 billion and taking the third spot from XRP while Bitcoin’s market cap shrunk 37% during the same time.
The Fiat of Crypto Market
As we reported, the liquidity crunch was the reason behind the deep sell-off in the global markets forcing investors to sell everything they could. This flight to safety in cash was also seen in the crypto market in stablecoins.
While some investors were making an exit from the market, some were also parking their money into these less volatile and seamless ways to do transactions and waited on the sidelines for the opportunity to make their way back into the market.
“The world has been piling into dollars, and it just so happens that stablecoins are among some of the most unencumbered dollars you can obtain, outside of the financial system,” Nic Carter, co-founder of Coin Metrics told Bloomberg.
Each USDT of this popular but controversial coin, is roughly equivalent to $1, however, it doesn’t offer much transparency in supply issues.
Last year, it was revealed that Tether is only 74% backed by fiat reserves and then they changed its structure stating, the reserves may also “include other assets and receivables from loans made by Tether to third parties.”
Over the past years, Tether has jumped from just Ethereum-based USDT to also issuing its tokens on other blockchains as well such as Tron, EOS, and Liquid.
More Tether means sharp swings in price
In line with the international and government mandate crypto firms have taken to follow the regulatory procedures. Tether is also having its users adhere to KYC requirements.
“We can’t predict if the trajectory will remain the same, but the current interest gives us confidence in further steady growth of Tether’s monetary base,” said Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether and its sister company, crypto exchange Bitfinex.
However, growing interest in stablecoins also means more volatility for crypto prices.
“The more Tether there is in existence (and specifically the more sitting on exchanges), the more there is opportunity for sharp swings in price as traders can immediately buy in (or sell out) as opposed to the slower process of converting sending and fiat into crypto. This naturally lends itself to increased volatility,” said Sid Shekhar, co-founder of TokenAnalyst.
