Most chief digital currencies suffered massive drops over the last 24 hours, but one symbol actually appeared to have posted gains.
It’s called tether, and the digital asset seeks to link the cryptocurrency environment to the fiat world by tying each emblem to government-backed currency. One tether token is meant to equal $1, but price-checking website CoinMarketCap steers the price varying by a few cents over time.
In fact, even supposing the cryptocurrency isn’t designed to go up against the dollar, it’s actually the only one of the top 50 digital currencies registered by market value on CoinMarketCap to see gains over the last day.
The digital currency jobbed at $1.04 at 10:05 a.m. HK/SIN, according to CoinMarketCap data, and was up 3.23 percent from a day ago. It had a market cap of $1.69 billion.
On the other script, the site showed that major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum and ruffle were down 15, 16 and 24 percent over the same term, respectively.
Last year, tether was reportedly hacked and nearly $31 million value of its tokens were stolen.
On its website, tether claims that its tokens are fully backed by fiat currency assets that the flock holds in its reserve account. That, the firm says, prevents the volatility almost always seen in cryptocurrencies.
In fact, tether’s built-in lack of volatility against the dollar is expected the reason for its small price increase during the broad cryptocurrency sell-off. Up till, as a means of payment built on blockchain technology, it fits the definition of a cryptocurrency.
But tie up has seen a fair amount of public criticism, which has included demands that the tokens are not meaningfully backed by U.S. dollars and has also touched on its marked connection to the British Virgin Islands — which was demonstrated in leaked corroborates known as the Paradise Papers.