Bloomberg report suggests Tether has the necessary fiat collateral

The question of whether Tether, the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, has the billions in USD to back up its cryptocurrency is something that has long hung over the nascent crypto industry. Those concerns might be "unfounded," a Bloomberg News report finds. 

Reviewing statements outlining the cash in the company's accounts over four months, Bloomberg found Tether essentially had a dollar for every USDT on the market. The authenticity of the documents was confirmed by a government official. "For example, one statement shows $2.2 billion was in Tether’s account at Puerto Rico’s Noble Bank Ltd. on Jan. 31. That same day, 2.195 billion Tethers existed, according to data compiled by Coinmarketcap.com," the report noted. 

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Per Bloomberg's report, the number of Tethers in circulation and the amount of dollars "match[ed] up in September and October 2017," with the money held in Noble Bank at the time. The company also stored"$60.9 million in customer cash at Bank of Montreal in an account under the name of Hoegner, referring to the firm's general counsel." Tether confirmed earlier this year that it shifted funds to Deltec Bank in October 2018, following initial reports by The Block. Bloomberg also found that large sums of money moved back and forth between Tether and Bitfinex, which share the same executive management. Tether also earned $6.6 million in interest between the start of 2018 and July.

In December 2017, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) subpoenaed Tether and Bitfinex. According to Bloomberg, the status of the CFTC investigation couldn’t be determined but regulators supposedly spent about six months going through the transactions. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Larry joined crypto research full time in early 2017 and has expertise in capital markets, market structure and early stage DeFi companies/protocols and token economics. He has a background in economics and finance.