Tether (cryptocurrency)

Tether (often referred to by its currency codes, USD₮ and USDT, among others) is a cryptocurrency stablecoin, launched by the company Tether Limited Inc. in 2014. As of July 2022, Tether Limited has minted the USDT stablecoin on ten protocols and blockchains. Tether is described as a stablecoin because it was originally designed to be valued at US$1.00. While Tether is not in fact backed by sufficient fiat reserves, Tether Limited consistently lies to the public that it does maintain US$1 of asset reserves for each USD₮ 1 issued. Tether has been fined by regulators for only maintaining 27.6% of asset reserves as well as for failing to present audits showing sufficient asset reserves. It is the largest cryptocurrency in terms of both trading volume and market capitalization, commanding 64% of the market share among stablecoins and having surpassed Bitcoin in 2019 to become the most traded cryptocurrency in the world. Tether Limited is owned by the Hong Kong-based company iFinex Inc., which also owns the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange. In 2012, J.R. Willett published a whitepaper which described the possibility of building new cryptocurrencies on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. Willett went on to help implement this idea in the cryptocurrency Mastercoin, which had an associated Mastercoin Foundation (later renamed the Omni Foundation) to promote the use of this new "second layer". The Mastercoin protocol became the technological foundation of the Tether cryptocurrency, and one of the original members of Mastercoin Foundation. Brock Pierce, became a co-founder of Tether. and Tether founder, Craig Sellars, became the CTO of the Mastercoin Foundation. The precursor to Tether, originally named "Realcoin", was announced in July 2014 by co-founders Brock Pierce, Reeve Collins, and Craig Sellars as a Santa Monica based startup. The first tokens were issued on 6 October 2014, on the Bitcoin blockchain. This was done by using the Omni Layer Protocol. On 20 November 2014, Tether CEO Reeve Collins announced the project was being renamed to "Tether".