What’s Up with USDT?

The CEO of Binance has repeatedly aired his distrust of USDT, dubbing it a “black box” due to its lack of transparency in audits and reports. Also, Binance listed a new stablecoin, FDUSD, on July 26th, that has seen a rapid rise in capitalization. They are in the process of designing their own algorithmic stablecoin and are open to listing more USDT equivalents on their exchange. Meanwhile, Tether’s CTO has hinted at CZ’s involvement in market manipulation in the stablecoin sector, mentioning a 10 basis point USDT depeg on July 28th. “Isn’t it interesting that USDt is being pressured down (slightly, within 10bps, just to push market makers to react), and USDc, the main competitor that you would expect being gaining from the situation, is redeemed heavily nevertheless, while suddenly a competitor born 2 days ago is getting it all? Exactly! It feels definitely organic and not manipulative at all. Some people never learn.” For the record, the Twitter account of First Digital Labs (FDUSD) has a mere 585 followers. It’s intriguing to watch the outcome of this power struggle. Is this just the tip of the iceberg? Fingers crossed, this won’t escalate into a challenge for a bout in the octagon, as seems to be a popular move among billionaires…