Following three consecutive days of growth, bitcoin started Friday on a modest downward trend.
Bitcoin saw a 0.9% fall in the latest 24 hours, dropping down the $17,000 mark, according to CoinMarketCap. Meanwhile, Ethereum tumbled 0.5% during the same period, reaching $1,279.
This market retraction is due to investors being cautious about digital assets after reports of an imminent USDT crash.
Bitcoin was experiencing its first major upwards movement since the FTX meltdown affected the entire market. Also, recent reports that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission will likely slow down interest raises in December also had a positive effect on BTC.
Bitcoin Still Positive on Weekly Chart
Despite Friday’s stumble, Bitcoin is still positive on a 7-day chart.
Overall, BTC grew 2.6% in the past seven days, while Ethereum grew a whopping 7.4%.
The next week, news from FTX’s investigation are still likely to affect the cryptocurrency space, however, for the time being it appears as Bitcoin is showing signs of recovery since November’s catastrophic crash.
USDT In Danger?
“Tether Holdings”, the corporation behind the stablecoin tether (USDT), has significantly increased its lending operations in recent quarters.
The concern is whether the company responsible for Tether has sufficient liquid assets to fund redemption in the event of financial duress.
Nonetheless, the corporation claims that the assets loaned are secured loans, emphasizing that liquid assets adequately collateralize them and that they are regularly monitored and quantified at present value.
Furthermore, according to Tether’s most recent reserves report, total assets were $68.06 billion and liabilities were $67.81 billion, leaving a little capital cushion of around $250 million, or 0.4% of assets.
Since December of 2021, Tether attained over $1 billion in loan issuance. Adding to that, Tether hit $6.1 billion in secured loans since September 2022 (9% of its total assets).
Amidst the collapse of the then seventh-largest crypto exchange “FTX”, Tether had to froze over $45 million worth of USDT that was attached to the exchange.
This caused the “stablecoin” to lose part of its stability. Tether lost its $1 dollar peg by 3%, hitting $0,98 on November 10th. However, since then the asset returned to its normal worth.
