Tether CTO says portfolio is 'stronger than ever'

Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino has reiterated the stablecoin issuer’s stance that its operations, products and portfolio is indeed as strong as ever.

Ardoino’s comments, shared in a long Twitter thread on Monday, come amid what has been reported as a “coordinated attack” on Tether’s USDT by hedge funds after LUNA/UST’s collapse.

He says ‘attackers’ have targeted Tether “USDt/USD perps (the perfect attack vector that offers an asymmetric bet), spot short selling, and DeFi pools unbalancing.”

Attackers have an objective

According to the Tether CTO, the goal is to create pressure around the stablecoin running into billions of dollars and lead to massive outflows that would harm the stablecoin’s liquidity. Those doing so have the objective of eventually buying back the tokens “at much lower price.”

Despite all the public 3rd party attestations, our collaboration with regulators, our increased transparency efforts, our commitment to phase out CP exposure and move into US Treasuries, our settlements,… they kept thinking and suggesting that we, Tether, are the bad guys.”

He says Tether is in fact 100% backed, with every USDT redeemable at $1. On how strong the company’s portfolio is, Ardoino points to 7 billion USDT redemptions in 48%, an average of 10% of the company’s total assets.

In the past month, 16 billion in redemptions have been processed – he says there has not been any failed redemption.

USDT is the largest stablecoin in the crypto market, with a market cap of nearly $70 billion. Tether also has issued other stablecoins pegged on the Euro, the GBP, the offshore Chinese yuan and the Mexican peso.