Tether, World's Biggest Stablecoin, Cuts Its Commercial Paper Holdings To Zero
Tether, the world's largest stablecoin, has slashed back its commercial paper holdings to zero, replacing them with U.S. Treasury bills instead, according to a blog post. CNBC reports: The popular U.S.-dollar-pegged cryptocurrency said the move is part of tether's "ongoing efforts to increase transparency" and back its tokens with "the most secure reserves in the market" -- in the ultimate hope of ensuring investor protection. There are now about 68.4 billion tether tokens in circulation, according to data from CoinMarketCap, up from 2 billion three years ago. The cryptocurrency has a market capitalization of $68.4 billion. "Tether has led the industry in transparency releasing attestations every three months, constantly reviewing the make up of its reserves," continued the statement. Commercial paper is a form of short-term, unsecured debt issued by companies, and it is considered to be less reliable than Treasury bills. In October, Tether's Chief Technology Officer, Paolo Ardoino, tweeted that 58.1% of its assets were in T-bills, up from 43.5% in June. It is unclear where that percentage currently stands, but Ardoino did write in a post on Thursday that Tether was able to pay $7 billion, or 10% of its reserves, in 48 hours. "Ask your bank or other stablecoins if they can do that, in same time frame of course," he wrote. Thursday's statement went on to note that zeroing out the balance of its commercial paper holdings was also meant to be a step toward "greater transparency and trust, not only for tether but for the entire stablecoin industry." While not yet large enough to cause disruption in U.S. money markets, tether could eventually reach a size where its owning of U.S. Treasuries becomes "really scary," Carol Alexander, a professor of finance at Sussex University, said. "Suppose you go down the line and, instead of $80 billion, we've got $200 billion, and most of that is in liquid U.S. government securities," she said. "Then a crash in tether would have a substantial impact on U.S. money markets and would just tip the whole world into recession."
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