It nearly 24 hours that payments giant PayPal announced the launch of its crypto trading services on Wednesday, October 21. Later on the day, the Bitcoin price surged past $13,000 as the bulls raged-in. Many attribute this BTC price surge to the PayPal news. However, there was a silent player possibly behind the Bitcoin price rise. Yes! it’s bitcoin’s good old friend and stablecoin Tether (USDT).
Over the last 48 hours, nearly $600 million worth of USDT has been minted and distributed within the crypto ecosystem. Twitter handle recently noted that another $150 million USDT were minted.
?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? 150,000,000 #USDT (150,199,713 USD) minted at Tether Treasury
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) October 22, 2020
In the past, Tether (USDT) has been at the center of several controversies for pumping the Bitcoin price. There have been several debates about whether the Tether issuance really leads to the BTC price rise. While, there hasn’t been any clear answer to this yet, but has always kept market analysts excited. In another proof, popular analyst Joseph Young recently tweeted that BTC/USDT volume on BINANCE crossed $1.3 billion.
The bitcoin-to-tether (BTC-USDT) volume on Binance is $1.3 billion. Wow, haven't seen this level of trading activity in a while.
— Joseph Young (@iamjosephyoung) October 22, 2020
This massive levels of trading activity raise back the suspicion that there is something co-related to the USDT issuance and BTC price surge.
Tether (USDT) Issuance Happens Just Hours Before PayPal News
Another crypto analyst that goes by the pseudonymous name of CryptoHamster is rather certain about Tether behind Bitcoin’s price surge above $13,000.
I don't believe that the recent $BTC rise occurred due to the PayPal news.
It more looks like a "Xi-pump" in October 2019.
Instead, take a look at what happens with the correlation between the price of #bitcoin and a #tether capitalization.
Again! (Check old posts too)$BTCUSD https://t.co/Hz1szb8fiC pic.twitter.com/ZhORYnxZyZ
— CryptoHamster (@CryptoHamsterIO) October 22, 2020
Although PayPal officially announced its entry into the crypto market yesterday, the news has already been flowing some time back. This gives skeptics another chance to think if USDT could be the silent player behind the curtains. Between October 2- and October 21, the t24-hour trading volume for USDT has also spiked sharply from $35 billion to over $53 billion, as per data on CoinMarketCap.
The USDT is the third-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap and is tightly associated with the Bitcoin trading volumes. Pegged to the U.S. Dollar 1:1, Tether (USDT) remains as the most popular medium of exchange in the crypto market. At press time, Bitcoin is trading at a price of $12,864 with a market cap of $238 billion.
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