How Crypto Markets Are Reacting to the Tether-Bitfinex Allegations



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The UTC on Thursday, following allegations that the Bitfinex exchange covered up a $ 850 million shortfall using the U.S. dollar-pegged Tether (USDT) stablecoin.

The New York Attorney General's office alleged in a statement on Thursday that Bitfinex lost $ 850 million and used customer and corporate funds affiliated stablecoin operator Tether in a coverup.

The allegations appear to have affected USDT's peg to the U.S. dollar, and have shaken market confidence that triggered an overall sell-off with larger cryptos by market cap as such and XRP down 6.99 and 4.8 percent, respectively.

Based on data from CoinMarketCap, the overall crypto market's capitalization dropped by $ 10 trillion to as low as $ 167 trillion early Friday morning UTC time, and has since then climbed above $ 172 trillion as of press time.

Daily chart – Tether

At 21:00 UTC on Thursday, the price of USDT starts to $ 0.9 to $ 0.955, depending on the Kraken and OKCoin US exchanges US dollars.

The USDT price is now changing $ 0.97 on both Kraken and OKCoin

Other stablecoin assets such as USDC, TrueUSD and GUSD are all in the green up between 0.25 and 3 percent as a result of shifting investor funds towards some of the other more regulated alternatives.

Interestingly, Maker (MKR), the crypto asset behind the MakerDAO stablecoin project is down 14.65 percent over a 24-hour period, having dropped $ 73 in value and is currently the worst performer among the top 25 crypto. All against recent upgrades to stabilize its value through a fee increase.

Daily chart – Other markets

Meanwhile, as seen above, the reaction to the Bitfinex and tether allegations has been negative with the majority of cryptocurrencies flashing red today.

Bitcoin is here and is changing hands at $ 5,138 after dropping to $ 4,953 on the Coinbase exchange late Thursday.

And Whale Alert, a Twitter service that monitors blockchain transactions, reported that hours after the news, 3,999 bitcoin, which was worth $ 20 million, got moved out of Bitfinex 's exchange wallets to unknown addresses.

These recent moves are indicative of trader's sentiment who are currently seeking to reduce their risk by transferring funds away from the allegedly troubled exchange.

However, others have fared better than others in the marketplace.

Ether is today's worst performing asset among the top 3 major networks, down 6.91 percent and is struggling to find a strong bid beyond $ 152 after falling from $ 165 at 21:00 UTC yesterday.

Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing.

Untethered image via Shutterstock; charts via TradingView

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