Storing Assets in USDT: A Comprehensive Guide for Crypto Investors
Should I store my assets in USDT?
I will try to answer this question mostly utilizing the Fundamental Qualitative Analysis.
Tether's USDT to USD $ 1 to 1 peg.
Tether, USDT is a well known stablecoin (reference the chart). There are many just like it, Circle's USDC, Binance's BUSD, MakerDAO's DAI, they all promise a 1 to 1 peg to the USD (at the time of writing 1 BUSD is equals to $0.9987).
What is a 1 to 1 peg?
1 to 1 peg is a practice of attaching or tying a currency's (or digital asset's) exchange rate to another currency, in our case a US $.
Since 2014, Tether has promised a full audit.
People and Regulators are eager to see the audited Reserve Assets Report. Tether does have a Transparency page, with some liquidity stats, but recent events have raised questions.
What concerns me.
As per Tether's Terms and Conditions (last updated March 15th, 2022), Tether says they will not issue Tethers backed by digital tokens (BTC, ETH, ADA, etc.). On July 8th, Tether discloses that Celsius Loan was denominated in BTC.
The Tweet
July 24th, Tether tweets against Ad Cookies and gives a date, 25.07.2022, I guess I should be expecting the extinction of Ad Cookies. I've snooped through Tether's website and there is a Google Analytics and a doubleclick Google Ad Manager cookie present on the pages I've visited. So, no actual Ad cookies spotted. But there is an option to Opt In!
Tether's baggage, the timeline
April 2019 - NYAG sues Tether. August 2019 - Tether goes to Supreme Court to not produce the requested documents from the NYAG. July 2020 - Tether loses the Supreme Court lawsuit. January 2021 - After a couple extensions, Tether produces the documents, documents from 2018 and older. February 2021 - Tether and NYAG settle, fine is paid and a few disturbing details are revealed, that include: 1 Tether hid massive funds losses. 2 Tether was not backed. 3 Tether faked an attestation that was published on their website. 4 Tether commingled customer funds... the list goes on.
Conclusion
Should I store my assets in USDT? Answer: No. Tether has a lot of heavy history, inconsistencies, and doesn't like its own Terms and Conditions.
