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Some Lebanese mine Bitcoin and use USDT to pay daily expenses
In Lebanon, when Gebrael, a local, needed cash to pay for groceries and other basic expenses, he first used a service called FixedFloat to exchange some of the bitcoin he earned through freelance work for Tether, also known as USDT. is a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar. Afterwards, he went to one of two Telegram groups and arranged to trade Tether for dollars. While Tether doesn't offer the same appreciation potential as other cryptocurrencies, it represents something more important: a currency that Lebanese still trust.
Every week, Gebrael finds someone willing to do the swap and arranges a face-to-face meeting. Because he often conducts transactions with strangers, Gebrael usually chooses public places, such as coffee shops or the ground floors of residential buildings.
“At one point I was terrified because it was at night and the person I contacted asked me to go to their apartment,” Gebrael said of one handover. "I had them pick me up from the street and everything went well. I tried to stay as safe as possible."
These backchannels have become a key lifeline for the new dollar, which is crucial in Lebanon's mostly cash economy.
“It’s very easy to get cash in cryptocurrencies here,” El Hajj said of his experience. “There are a lot of people trading USDT for cash.”
Transactions in the Telegram groups used by Gebrael range from $30 to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In addition to Telegram, there is also a network of over-the-counter dealers that specialize in exchanging several different types of fiat currencies for cryptocurrencies. The model is similar to the centuries-old hawala system - facilitating cross-border transactions through a complex network of money changers and personal connections.
Abu Daher provides exchange services in conjunction with its mining operations and charges a 1% commission to both parties involved in the transaction.
“We started by buying and selling USDT because the demand for USDT was very high,” said Abu Daher, adding that he was “shocked” by the influx of his services.
Some are paying their day-to-day expenses directly in Tether to avoid paying commissions to cryptocurrency exchanges — or having to go through motions to set up informal transactions with strangers.
Even though Lebanese law prohibits accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, businesses are still actively advertising their acceptance of cryptocurrencies on Instagram and other social media platforms.
“USDT is very widely used. There are a lot of coffee shops, restaurants, and electronics stores that accept USDT as payment, so it’s handy if I don’t need to use fiat currency but use my Bitcoin savings to spend,” Gebrael explained road. “The government has a much bigger problem right now than worrying about some stores accepting cryptocurrencies.”
According to El Chamaa, with the rise of mining farms, local businesses in the Chouf region have also started accepting crypto payments. In Sidon, the 26-year-old owner of a restaurant called Jawad Snack said about 30 percent of his transactions come from cryptocurrencies, according to written comments translated by Abu Daher and shared with CNBC via WhatsApp.
“Because of the huge inflation in the Lebanese Lira, I’d be better off accepting Tether or USD,” the owner continued, adding that once he paid in Tether, he would cash it out into fiat currency through black market traders. He said he usually trades through Abu Daher for this, as he lives closest.
Abu Daher used Tether to pay for the imported machines, but he still had to pay a lot in Lebanese lira (for electricity, internet, and rent) as well as in dollars (for cooling systems and security systems).
Some hotels and tourist establishments accept Tether, as does at least one auto mechanic who lives in Sidon.
In fact, new research from blockchain data firm Chainalysis shows that cryptocurrency transactions in Lebanon are up about 120% year-over-year, making it second only to Turkey in terms of the number of cryptocurrencies received by the Middle Eastern and northern countries. Africa. (No. 56 in global peer-to-peer transaction volume.)
"We put money into the phone. It's the easiest way," says Abu Daher.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/05/-in-bankrupt-lebanon-locals-mine-bitcoin-and-buy-groceries-with-tether.html
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Tether Gold: Flight to Security and Utility
When you say digital gold, people immediately think of Bitcoin, and for good reason, because Bitcoin has fundamentally changed the way we store value and transact over the internet. However, Tether Gold:XAUt is another form of digital gold; physical gold, represented by XAUt tokens. Tether launched XAUt to make physical gold more in line with the needs and advantages of our digital world.
Tether Gold is not competing with Bitcoin to be the best digital gold, but it is actually competing with the U.S. dollar to be the best stablecoin. XAUt represents a return to the gold standard as it allows users to easily store, trade and keep gold. This is further enhanced by the ability to transact digitally, and the same is true for Bitcoin. Each XAUt token represents one ounce of London Good Delivery gold bar. XAUt tokens can be freely transferred and traded after purchase, which greatly improves the ability of individuals and institutions to freely trade gold. XAUt tokens have a more reliable claim on physical gold than gold futures, since each XAUt is tied to a specific, unique gold bar.
Why choose gold?
In an increasingly digital world, it's easy to forget why gold has been an attractive investment for most of human history. The gold standard has many benefits that contemporary economics ignores. A major benefit is that by limiting the money supply, people are able to save money without losing value. Today, cash must be converted immediately into assets (stocks, bonds, real estate, etc.), all of which carry their own risks. XAUt allows users to easily convert their savings into gold through XAUt tokens. This effectively conserves gold, as it did during the gold standard. It is important to realize that virtually all central banks and many countries hold significant amounts of gold in their sovereign reserves. They hold gold for the moment when the global financial system decides to switch to a neutral reserve asset, rather than a specific country-issued reserve asset. Even if you (and we) believe that Bitcoin will eventually become the world's primary neutral reserve asset, it's pragmatic to expect that gold will still play a key role. If the world turns to a neutral reserve asset, which is increasingly likely, gold will be the main beneficiary along with Bitcoin.
XAUt makes gold easy
Even if we agree that gold has a role to play in a portfolio, how do we overcome its challenges? Due to its physical nature, gold is difficult to store, verify and trade. XAUt is a digital token backed by physical gold, so it inherits all monetary properties of blockchain-based assets. XAUt can be stored by individuals in any digital or hardware wallet they use to store ERC-20 tokens. This means users can store their own gold! XAUt also allows users to easily trade their gold. Send gold value anywhere in the world by transferring XAUt tokens with the click of a button. Unlike gold, users can send fractions of XAUt tokens, meaning they can trade any amount of value from their gold holdings. Likewise, users can convert Bitcoin to XAUt, and XAUt to Bitcoin with just a few clicks of a button. One of the biggest challenges of owning gold bars or coins is that you can never spend or sell some of them. XAUt removes this challenge by making gold divisible like any other digital asset. Finally, unlike physical gold, XAUt is highly portable. XAUt tokens can be carried in your pocket wherever you want to go. People have historically held gold as a way to escape politically unstable countries, but while gold may allow them to protect their savings, it is nearly impossible for a country to own a lot of gold. Imagine trying to escape a country with 10 gold bars in your suitcase! It will be confiscated or stolen. XAUt enables users around the world to easily turn their savings into gold and take it with them wherever they go.
Using Gold in the Digital Economy
As the global economy becomes increasingly digital, it becomes more difficult for gold to play a meaningful role because it is not compatible with the modern financial system. In a world where all value is settled digitally, the best the world can do is create flawed derivatives of gold. XAUt is a native blockchain asset that can be embedded in any smart contract, any exchange, any wallet, and any future innovation! This means that, unlike gold bars in a vault, XAUt can potentially be used to generate yield or as collateral for borrowing. De-Fi apps can easily earn token yields because they can easily serve as collateral. As De-Fi applications continue to grow, there will be more use cases that are only accessible through digitized, tokenized versions of gold. These services make gold more attractive as an asset, and XAUt provides users with this access.
The world is facing the highest level of structural inflation in decades. While no one knows for sure what the future holds, many of the world's brightest economic minds expect inflation to persist. Gold has historically been the standard for assets that provide inflation protection, and while it now shares that role with Bitcoin, it's unlikely that gold will stop being used anytime soon. The biggest problem with gold is its physical properties, which make it difficult to invest in and prevent it from being utilized in the rest of our financial system. XAUt turns the whole dynamic on its head! By making gold as easy to own and use as any other digital asset, XAUt re-energizes gold's appeal as an investment asset in our digital world. For users who like to save gold, this can easily return to the personal gold standard. As other digital gold creators once said, "you might want to buy some in case it suddenly catches on".
https://tether.to/en/a-flight-to-safety-and-utility/
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FTX Black Swan Event and Tether's Continued Stability
Amid the rumors of the bankruptcy of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and concerns about Alameda Research's financial situation, we first want to reiterate as the mouthpiece of the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem: a crisis does not represent an industry itself.
Regardless of the volatility this event may cause, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are fueling a revolution in financial inclusion, working to change financial models that no longer work in the modern world.
Second, we would like to state that Tether has absolutely no loans to FTX or Alameda Research at this moment. Tether has absolutely no relationship with Alameda Research or FTX.
Tether tokens are 100% backed by our reserves, and the assets backing the reserves exceed our liabilities. Tether holds a strong, conservative, and liquid portfolio that includes cash, cash equivalents, and U.S. Treasuries. Tether will continue to focus on safeguarding these reserves, as it has done for many years.
While the situation at FTX has surprised many given its reputation and size, FTX is not representative of what all the big players in the industry are doing. Tether has been working on its commitment to strengthen its balance sheet as much as possible and improve the quality and liquidity of its collateral.
Tether has adapted and grown with changing market conditions. We can proudly say that the vast majority of Tether's reserves are now U.S. Treasury bonds. This puts Tether in a good position to ride out any volatility that may arise.
In some ways, it’s ironic that critics have been waiting for years to see Tether follow in the footsteps of so many others’ failures. But Tether has continued to ride countless black swans without the slightest problem, and these critics have always failed when targeting Tether. Perhaps they will one day ask themselves: why does Tether continue to serve its users and community while so few others do.
This morning, Tether’s peg appears to have dropped below $1 due to issues with CoinGecko’s API scraping data from certain exchanges. But at the same time, in the transactions of Binance, Bitfinex and Coinbase, the price difference between Tether and USD is only 0.1% (10 bps). This data shows that the problem has been solved by the Coingecko team.
Time and time again we find ourselves defending irrational thinking and Tether market rumors when the simple truth is that many people do not understand the simple market mechanics and how Tether works.
During periods of market volatility, the USDt transaction price quoted by the exchange may fluctuate. This is because the demand for liquidity exceeds that exchange's order book, and has nothing to do with Tether's ability to hold its peg or the value or composition of its reserves. While this was not the case this morning, critics and skeptics in the crypto industry are still ill-informed and jumping to conclusions.
Tether has nearly $70 billion in collateral, which it can redeem for U.S. dollars. No exchange order book can match this amount of liquidity. Ultimately, USDt maintained its peg due to Tether’s redemption mechanism for USDt and the collateral behind it, not because USDt’s price typically trades at $1 on exchanges. In fact, USDt is often traded at $1 on exchanges because investors know that Tether's redemption mechanism is reliable.
Tether has never rejected USDt's redemption application. Many will recall that during numerous black swan events, Tether not only maintained its peg, but honored every redemption request.
This year alone, Tether was able to redeem 10% of its outstanding debt within 48 hours. This is unheard of - no bank in the world has ever processed withdrawals of 10% of outstanding debt in a single day. Additionally, Tether completed withdrawals of $20 billion in 30 days, which is 25% of its reserves. While user withdrawals far below that figure have historically led to some of the largest bank runs, Tether has been able to pull off the feat effortlessly.
Tether will continue to lead the industry in transparency and security, unwavering in providing a safe haven for all.
https://tether.to/en/ftx-black-swans-and-tethers-continued-stability/
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Tether dominance nears all-time highs as cryptocurrencies crash
The market dominance of leading stablecoin Tether (USDT) is approaching new all-time highs as the cryptocurrency market suffers from the apparent crash of FTX.
There are currently nearly 70 billion USDT in circulation in the encryption ecosystem, accounting for nearly 9% of the entire digital asset market value.
While slightly below its all-time high of 9.49%, USDT’s dominance is up 25 percentage points from last Friday. That was before Binance CEO CZ launched a controversy against rival cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.
On Saturday, CZ said he would soon dump millions of dollars in FTX's native token, FTT, culminating in an announcement yesterday that he had fully acquired Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange.
USDT offered a higher supply in April, months before the historic Tether bank run following the failure of algorithmic rival Terra earlier this year. But at that time USDT accounted for only half of the crypto space, about 4.5%.
It’s clear that investors are fleeing the safety of dollar-denominated tokens. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is down 20% in the past five days and 15% in the past 24 hours alone, with a paper loss of $49.1 billion.
Regardless, USDT remains the number one stablecoin. Given the current crypto market meltdown, Tether’s dominance is almost as high as ever (not to mention its share of the stablecoin market, with its supply accounting for over 48% of all stablecoins in circulation).
Tether has enjoyed continued success despite changing support targets, failed promised audits, a lawsuit settlement with the New York Attorney General, and numerous operational red flags dating back years.
Traders still use USDT more than any other stablecoin: Of the $173.5 billion in stablecoin trading volume in the past day, USDT accounted for 75%; 17%; and USDC 6.5%, although BUSD has seen significant volume in recent months rise.
Vivek Raman, head of proof-of-stake at research arm BitOoda, told Blockworks that USDT’s supply continues to grow relative to USDC because of Tether’s collateral holdings report in the face of “endless FUD activity against it, and the looting over the summer.” survived."
"This, combined with the reshuffling of the underlying collateral into a safer yielding instrument [U.S. Treasuries], means that USDT may be viewed as safer than USDC and continue to gain traction overseas," Raman said, adding that BUSD's inherent fully bear the credit risk of Binance.
To that end, in August Binance committed to start providing a monthly breakdown of its reserves through Paxos, the actual issuer of BUSD. According to its latest disclosure, BUSD is fully backed by U.S. Treasury bills and U.S. Treasuries, the latter in the form of reverse repurchase agreements. U.S. Treasuries also play an important role in the reserves of USDT and USDC.
“As such, we foresee an era of ‘stablecoin wars,’ where there is healthy competition for stablecoin dominance,” Raman said.
https://blockworks.co/news/tether-dominance-nears-all-time-high-as-crypto-crashes/
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Tron DAO to Buy $1 Billion in USDT to 'Protect' From Market Slump
The Tron DAO, a community-focused decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) supporting the growth of the Tron network, said it would buy more than $1 billion worth of Tether (USDT) stablecoins to cushion market declines.
In a follow-up tweet, Tron DAO stated that it would increase the purchase amount to over $1 billion. “You may see balance changes on Usdd.io and all reserves will be represented in CEX,” Tron DAO said.
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2022/11/10/trons-dao-to-purchase-300m-usdt-to-safeguard-against-market-slump/
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Tether Proves Resilience of Reserves in Its Latest Report
Today, Tether Holdings Limited announced the latest quarterly audit opinion completed by BDO, the world's top five independent public accounting firm. The report reaffirms the accuracy of Tether's Consolidated Reserves Report (CRR), which breaks down the group's holdings as of September 30, 2022. The CRR demonstrated the strength of its reserves, showing a massive reduction in commercial paper investment to near zero and an overall increase in US Treasuries.
Tether's reserves are extremely liquid, with the majority of its investments representing 82% of total assets held in cash and cash equivalents and other short-term deposits. It further highlighted a significant reduction in commercial paper, with exposures at just 0.07% of reserves as of the reporting date. Tether has reduced its commercial paper exposure by over $24 billion with no losses during 2022, fulfilling its commitment and commitment to the community. The last remaining CP starts to be fully repaid in October 2022. U.S. Treasury bills also now make up a significant portion of Tether’s reserves, with over 58% direct exposure.
Tether's CRR shows that BDO has independently certified that the group's combined assets exceed its combined liabilities.
You can read the latest assurance opinion and consolidated reserves report,
As of September 30, 2022, the company's management statement is as follows:
The consolidated total assets of the Group are at least US$68,061,618,458.
The Group's total consolidated liabilities amounted to US$67,811,510,720, of which US$67,805,112,981 related to the issuance of digital tokens.
The Group's consolidated assets exceed its consolidated liabilities.
https://tether.to/en/tether-proves-resilience-of-reserves-in-latest-attestation/
