Tether (USDT) Retires 30M Tokens to Treasury

Tether (USDT) has sent a reverse transaction from the Bitfinex hot wallet to the treasury wallet, just as reserves were growing noticeably thin. The latest transaction saw 30 million tokens returned to the treasury, raising the reserves to above 180 million tokens.

The Tether treasury wallet was instrumental in the latest price recovery for Bitcoin (BTC), as the issue of periodic tranches to Bitfinex resulted in positive price actions. There were expectations that some tokens would be returned to the treasury, but more than 200 million USDT are still circulating on Bitfinex.

The BTC market price was shaken down fast in the past day, sinking from nearly $6,700 at around 17:00 UTC on August 22, down to $6,463.05 within two hours. BTC touched lows of $6,310.11, and trading volumes thinned out to the equivalent of $3.9 billion.

Based on the latest data from Cryptocompare, Bitcoin’s dollar-equivalent trades are now happening to a great degree on Bitfinex, which means that USDT liquidity is still propping up prices. Bitfinex accounts for more than 40% of BTC trades against fiat-like positions.

The lower the BTC volumes, the higher the influence of USDT. Even with the 30 million tokens retired to the treasury, USDT pairings took up more than 51% of BTC volume. It is precisely this connection between USDT and BTC activity that has fueled talks and verdicts of potential market manipulation performed through Bitfinex.

In the past, added USDT tokens, whether through printing or through the treasury, have coincided with BTC price pumps. Now, the withdrawal of tokens roughly coincides with another relatively small slide in BTC prices. The influence of USDT remains significant, with the token taking up more than 23% of all cryptocurrency trades, whether through BTC pairings, or directly through altcoins. Binance remains the biggest USDT holder, with more than 756 million tokens involved in trading.

The transaction record shows that the last return of USDT to the treasury happened around August 8, before some of the funds were sent back as BTC prices threatened to slide below $6,000.