News

Tether has never and will never put the integrity of its reserves at risk. This has been proven time and time again not only by its ability to never refuse a redemption but also in the absolute transparency of its reserves.

While Tether’s portfolio does include an investment in Celsius, representing a minimal part of its shareholder’s equity, there is no correlation between this investment and Tether’s own reserves or stability. The Tether loan that was taken out by Celsius was an overcollateralized loan denominated in BTC (130%+), and the decision to liquidate the collateral to cover the loan was a part of the original terms of the agreement between the two entities and reconfirmed in writing before the start of the liquidation event. This process was carried out in a way to minimise as much as possible any impact on the markets and in fact, once the loan was covered, Tether returned the remaining part to Celsius as per its agreement. Celsius position has been liquidated with no losses to Tether.

Tether has developed a set of risk metrics and risk measurement processes, which allows the investment and financial teams to evaluate the risk of any of the company’s financial interactions. Tether's risk culture demonstrates an understanding of both the business of lending and takes into account the regulatory landscape in order to achieve and maintain its business objectives.

Recent crypto market history has shown and should teach us, that while the media, critics and community were wrongly fixated on Tether, other lenders including notable names in the space were blatantly providing lending facilities with nearly zero collateral. This goes against the strict regulatory practice that the industry has set as standard.

Critics who make claims of Tether’s inconsistencies clearly have no understanding of how lending, borrowing, and risk management work.

On May 19, Tether made available its latest quarterly assurance opinion demonstrating the strength of its reserves and revealing significant reductions in commercial paper investments.

Today, the company is excited to share an update on its progress to further reduce its commercial paper portfolio. Currently, Tether has 8.4B of these holdings, of which 5B will expire on July 31. This will result in a significant reduction in commercial paper assets to a low of 3.5B, which is on track with Tether's commitment to the community. The goal remains to bring the figure down to zero. While both commercial paper and treasury reserves are commonly held liquid assets and cash equivalents, U.S. treasuries will now make up an even larger percentage of Tether’s reserves.

This is part of a larger strategy to ensure that Tether has a diversified portfolio with limits to exposure on individual issuers or assets. It demonstrates a commitment by the company to reduce its commercial paper investments and validates the business, as part of its ongoing push towards an increased transparency for the stablecoin industry, proudly created by Tether in 2014. This will continue to be reflected in future assurance opinions in the coming months.

The Plan ₿ Forum will bring together the foremost thought leaders in the industry to engage in discourse about the future of freedom, communication, censorship and commerce 

Tether Operations Limited (Tether), the technology company supporting the blockchain-enabled platform that powers the largest stablecoin by market capitalisation (USD₮) and the Swiss city of Lugano announced today the speaker line up for the first-ever Plan ₿ Forum, a conference addressing Bitcoin and its potential for global financial disruption. 

Slated to take place from 28-29 October 2022, the Forum will bring together the foremost thought leaders and creators from the world of digital finance to discuss how Bitcoin is disrupting the world on a social and economical level through four different tracks: governmental, corporate, individual, and technological. The Forum promises to promote deep conversation around freedom of communication and financial freedom delving into topics including the disintermediation of finance, accessibility of financial services, unbanked persons, and regulation. 

Confirmed speakers include Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, Jameson Lopp, CTO at CASA, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert, Co-Founders of El Zonte Capital, Peter McCormak, host of What Bitcoin Did Podcast and Chairman of Real Bedford, Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Bitfinex/Tether, Samson Mow, Architect of the Bitcoin bond, Arnab Naskar, Co-Founder of STOKR and more. For a complete list of speakers, you can visit https://planb.lugano.ch/planb-forum/

Periods of high uncertainty lead to innovation. Since its creation, Bitcoin has evolved as a result of this innovation, acting as a vessel for financial freedom, the freedom of communication, and a reliable way for global citizens to escape endangered economies and unprovoked inflation. As a result, citizens worldwide are adopting and experimenting with Bitcoin to evade hyperinflation, strict financial controls, and rigid surveillance of central authorities. 

Bitcoin's intrinsic features give it the potential to serve citizens whilst empowering the financial system, acting as “sound money”, guaranteeing protection of civil liberties against despotic interference by government, and strengthening social justice in many areas around the globe. That is why the Plan ₿ Forum was created. To spread these ideas and educate communities globally on the freedoms associated with Bitcoin. 

In March of 2022, Tether and The City of Lugano joined forces on the Plan ₿ initiative to make Bitcoin, Tether, and LVGA the ‘de facto’ legal tender in the city. This was only the beginning of a larger objective to drive cryptocurrency adoption in Europe, which also includes the launch of the Plan ₿ Summer School, an educational program designed to bring crypto education to the masses. The Forum is an extension of The City of Lugano and Tether’s long term goal to make Lugano the blockchain epicenter of Europe. It was launched in order to drive awareness around the power of digital assets and blockchain, as well as to introduce the industry to the City and all it has to offer to the digital asset ecosystem, from the business friendly environment to a fantastic quality of life. 

The Plan ₿ Forum 2022 event website is now live and will serve as an important resource for participants to register and gather information on the program and speaker profiles as well as information on travel and logistics to Lugano. Interested participants can visit https://planb.lugano.ch/planb-forum/

Why the Swiss city of Lugano? 

In addition to working together on Plan ₿, an initiative to accelerate the use of and leverage bitcoin technology, the choice to host the forum in Lugano, comes at a time when the region is being recognized more than ever as a major player in the financial world. Switzerland and Lugano are globally acknowledged as a land of opportunity and freedom with an emphasis on providing individual financial freedoms. These three elements: freedom, finance, and cutting-edge innovation, combined with a decentralized, bottom-up political culture make Lugano and Switzerland the ideal place from which to promote a revolution - financial and technological - intrinsic in Bitcoin itself, on a global level and to drive true global mass adoption.

About Plan B 

Lugano’s Plan ₿ is a joint initiative between the City of Lugano and Tether to accelerate the use of and leverage bitcoin technology as the foundation to transform the city’s financial infrastructure.

The plan will scale blockchain and Bitcoin throughout the city to positively impact all facets of daily life for the residents of Lugano. From small transactions with local merchants to larger efforts – such as paying annual taxes – blockchain will serve as the foundation for the city’s financial exchanges.

Clearly, the growth of the total supply of stablecoins (which has exceeded $120 billion dollars) has caught the attention of many individuals and financial firms alike. However, high-profile failures like Terra have also been a critical part of the surge of attention, including attention from regulators and critics.

The utility of stablecoins is growing daily, which is good for the industry and for adoption. Many industry participants have commented on how the gap between Tether and its largest competitors has narrowed. However, the difference between USD₮’s 24hr trading volume and its competitors tells a clearer and more important story.

For example, rather than catering to the traditional banking industry, Tether is focused on being the most used currency for crypto currency trading and settlements, peer-to-peer exchanges, remittances, a tool of freedom and inflation hedge for developing countries.

This is why, during what's fair to define as the worst black swan event for crypto to date crypto, investors felt pressure to remove their excess cash from crypto.  Since Tether is the gateway for this industry, its marketcap has decreased due to billions of cash redemptions. Tether effortlessly facilitated these redemptions over the past several weeks, while Tether’s 24hr trading volume continues to be roughly 10x that of its closest competitor. This demonstrates the utility of and the demand for Tether in daily trading, a true measure of adoption.

The sheer scale of the integration of USD₮ into the financial plumbing of the crypto industry is an order of magnitude greater than its nearest competitor. This speaks volumes to the confidence the industry and all of its users have, in Tether and USD₮.

USD₮ is the Most Transparent Stablecoin

Tether’s competitors are often portrayed as more “transparent” than Tether and pundits will use this framing to construct a narrative that users choose them over Tether due to these qualities.

It does not reflect reality in any way.

Tether was the first stablecoin to provide attestations to the nature and breakdown of its reserves. Its competitors only provided this same level of transparency once Tether did.

Tether is critiqued for not having an audit, meanwhile, no stablecoin has ever produced an audit.

That will change soon.

Tether is currently preparing itself to go through an audit with a major accounting firm, one of the “Big 12” accounting firms.

The first question critics will ask is “Why not one of the Big 4?”. The reason is the Big 4 auditors are highly concerned with reputational risk due to the lack of regulatory clarity around stablecoins, and as such, they are not providing audit services to stablecoins. This is why none of Tether’s competitors has an audit from a Big 4 firm either.

Tether plans to be the first stablecoin to offer an audit into its reserves to the market. We expect that, as always, other stablecoins will merely follow Tether’s lead.

Composition of Tether Reserves

It is important to clarify the rumors being circulated by hedge funds about Tether's commercial paper holdings. The rumors that Tether's commercial paper portfolio is 85% backed by Chinese or Asian commercial papers and being traded at a 30% discount are completely false and aim to spread misinformation that will move the markets in the direction that hedge funds need in order to make a spread.

Tether condemns such attempts which oftentimes see the simplest users take the biggest hit, while few coordinated funds increase their profits.

In its latest assurance opinion, Tether announced that over 47% of total USD₮ reserves are now US Treasuries and that commercial paper makes up less than 25% of USD₮'s backing.

Tether can report that its current portfolio of commercial paper has since been further reduced to 11 billion (from 20 billion at the end of Q1 2022), and will be 8.4 billion by the end of June 2022. This will gradually decrease to zero without any incurrences of losses. All commercial papers are expiring and will be rolled into US Treasuries with a short maturity.

You can access our most recent attestation and other information at https://tether.to/en/transparency for the most up-to-date reporting on Tether’s reserves.

Redemptions, DDoS, and the Road Forward

Tether has processed over $14 billion in redemptions since May. Critics have been the first to notice this fact.

However, this is a fundamental attestation to the strength of USD₮ and the quality of Tether’s reserves. Redemptions of a similar size, and of equivalent proportions of total assets, have brought down major banks before.

Most notably, Tether processed a larger proportion of total assets in 10 days than Washington Mutual did before its collapse and failure. Critics continue to try to spin the story of redemptions as a weakness. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Tether’s handling of redemptions, and the ongoing stability of USD₮, is nothing but a battle-tested affirmation of the strength, stability, and liquidity of USD₮.

Tether also faced a DDoS attack within the last week. This attack was directed to Tether’s website, not anything related to the functioning of USD₮ on the various blockchains it is issued on.

Websites, and companies, face DDoS all of the time. In 2021 there were 9.7 million DDoS attacks.

This is business as usual for organizations operating online, especially firms in the public eye.

DDoS attacks on Tether’s website can never have any impact on the stability, liquidity, or redeemability of USD₮.

And during all of this, Tether continues to launch new tokens in its pursuit of financial freedom for people all over the world.

Tether has launched, and is in the process of launching more pegged tokens. Tether launched a Euro-pegged token, a Mexican Peso-pegged token, and is planning to launch a British Pound-pegged token.

The question of marketcap is far from the most interesting, or the most relevant question in evaluating Tether and its mission. Total trading volume, utilization in derivatives and De-Fi, acceptance by merchants, and all of Tether’s other products paint a much clearer picture.

If at any point USD₮ is overtaken in marketcap by any competitor, nothing changes for Tether.

USD₮ continues to be redeemable 1 for 1 with dollars. USD₮ continues to be a highly liquid, highly traded integral financial asset. People around the world will continue to accept USD₮ in markets where dollar access is limited.

And most importantly, Tether continues to advance its mission of promoting financial freedom, inclusion, and the peer-to-peer economic rights of human beings globally. 

The British Virgin Islands, 22 June 2022: Tether Operations Limited (“Tether”), the company operating the blockchain-enabled platform tether.to that powers the largest stablecoin by market capitalization of over US $68 billion, has announced that it will be launching Tether GBP pegged to the British Pound Sterling in early July. Initial blockchain support will include Ethereum.

Tether GBP will join four other fiat-currency pegged tokens the company has in the market: the U.S. dollar-pegged USD₮, the Euro-pegged EUR₮, the offshore Chinese Yuan-pegged CNH₮, as well as the recently launched MXN₮, the Mexican Peso-pegged stablecoin. 

In April of this year, The UK Treasury announced plans to make the country a global crypto hub. According to its website, the government will also make moves to see stablecoins recognized as a valid form of payment. This initiative, paired with hundreds of millions of people using crypto around the world, makes the United Kingdom a prime location for the next wave of industry innovation.

Tether GBP will be a stable digital asset that is pegged 1:1 to the British Pound Sterling. Tether GBP will be built by the trusted team of developers behind Tether USD₮ and operate under tether.to. The creation of Tether GBP will put British Pounds on the blockchain and provide a faster, less costly option for asset transfers. 

“We believe that the United Kingdom is the next frontier for blockchain innovation and the wider implementation of cryptocurrency for financial markets. We hope to help lead this innovation by providing cryptocurrency users worldwide with access to a GBP-denominated stablecoin issued by the largest stablecoin issuer,” said Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether. “Tether is ready and willing to work with UK regulators to make this goal a reality and looks forward to the continued adoption of Tether stablecoins”. 

The launch of Tether GBP represents the company's dedication to pioneering stablecoin technology and bringing the largest and most liquid stablecoins to global markets everywhere. Tether GBP will reinforce the British Pound Sterling as one of the most dominant currencies across the globe and introduce an FX opportunity for USD₮ and EUR₮. It will also act as an on-ramp to the decentralized finance ecosystem.

To learn more about Tether GBP, please visit www.tether.to or contact us at https://cs.tether.to/ 

Important Note

This press release is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy Tether GBP, USD₮, EUR₮, CHN₮ or MXN₮. Tether Limited and Tether International Limited will only sell or redeem Tether GBP₮, USD₮, EUR₮, CHN₮ and MXN₮ pursuant to its terms of service available (as of the date of this press release) at https://tether.to/en/legal.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release may be forward looking in nature. The words “believe,” “expect,” “estimate,” “could,” “should,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “seek,” “anticipate,” “project” and similar expressions, among others, generally identify “forward-looking statements,” which speak only as of the date the statements were made. The matters discussed in these forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. None of Tether Operations Limited, Tether Limited Tether International Limited nor any other person is responsible for updating or revising any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Not a week goes by where stablecoins aren’t discussed and debated in the mainstream media, which only goes to show how far the industry has come in the last 4 years. 

During volatile market conditions, this only increases! This article will explore how Tether's collateralized stablecoin model provides the ideal structure for private stablecoins. It will also discuss many of the questions analysts have including updates on Tether's reserves, answers to why Tether's peg has never "broken", and how Tether's lending is secured and over collateralized. 

Tether’s innovation (collateralized stablecoins) has polarized and inspired the world at large. Some countries are (unnecessarily) concerned about the potential impact private stablecoins may have on their financial infrastructure. This is, of course, a misplaced concern as private stablecoins not only pose no risk to financial stability but actually present meaningful opportunities for improvement and innovation in global financial systems.

A collateralized stablecoin is essentially a digital, fungible, token issued on a blockchain which is issued against a form of collateral held by a company or protocol. Tether was the first company to create and launch a collateralized stablecoin- USD₮. Seven years later, USD₮ has reached a fully backed supply of over $71.5 billion dollars with a peak of 83 billion dollars. 

Collateralized stablecoins provide a unique way to transact value digitally, providing all of the advantages of blockchain-based assets via a medium of exchange that is stable in price as opposed to the healthy volatility that characterizes most blockchain-based assets.

Due to USD₮’s success, many other projects have launched and tried to launch their own variations of Tether’s collateralized stablecoin model. Collateralized stablecoins have a combined value that exceeds $150 billion dollars!

Even with this rapid and profound growth, the impact of stablecoins is still in its first inning. They still represent a smaller financial asset, primarily used by those early adopters who understood their value before the rest of the world.

We expect that stablecoins will become an integrated and foundational part of global financial infrastructure in the years and decades to come. While Tether continues to maintain USD₮’s leading role as the largest and most widely trusted stablecoin, there will be many other stablecoins that emerge as financial tools to improve the economic ability and freedom of the world.

The collateralized stablecoin model represents a blueprint for private stablecoins. It provides a roadmap for issuing stable assets on blockchains that can be transacted in a fraction of the time of traditional financial transactions, and for a fraction of the cost. Additionally, private stablecoins empower users to access financial infrastructure without borders, unlike the closed-loop systems of national banking structures.

Collateralized stablecoins also present an interesting way to free the value locked in collateral. The various assets used to back collateralized stablecoins become liberated, not because the collateral is directly used or rehypothecated, but because their value is transferred to the stablecoin which provides liquidity to global commerce.

The USD₮ collateralized stablecoin blueprint is a model where assets like treasury bills, bonds, cash, and potentially other assets are used to back the value of the stablecoin. These assets not only back the stablecoin, giving it a real and fixed value, but the stablecoin is redeemable at any time for the agreed-upon value ($1 for USD₮). Once issued, the stablecoins can move around freely on digital infrastructure until the owner seeks to redeem them.

An important point to note is that USD₮’s stability emerges from its redemption facilities (verified users exchanging USD₮ for dollars on a 1:1 basis with Tether) not from its trading price on exchanges.

If the price of USD₮ diverges from $1 on a major exchange, as occurred in May, it does not mean USD₮ has lost its peg. Every time that USD₮ has ever diverged from $1 on exchanges, Tether has continued to redeem USD₮ for dollars on a 1:1 basis, quickly, and with no limitations on the size of redemption.

Direct redeemability produces stability for stablecoins, nothing else does. You can’t build a stablecoin whose stability requires market operations and the trading price of the asset.

This is part of the failure of Terra/Luna. This lesson did not need to be learned again, the world has experimented with currency pegs many times in our financial history.

It is extremely common that whenever countries have tried to peg the value of a currency to a specific value, the effort has been a failure. Not only do pegs break, but an enormous amount of capital must be spent to maintain artificial stability.

While the price of USD₮ on exchanges might fluctuate due to supply and demand changes, however, USD₮ are always redeemable on a 1:1 basis as they are fully collateralized, which keeps the value of USD₮ at $1.

Collateralized Stablecoins are the Winning Model

Tether’s collateralized stablecoin model represents the dominant model for stablecoin issuance. While there are other approaches being used to issue stablecoins, and there will likely be many more over the next decade, Tether’s model represents over 90% of all stablecoins in the market.

This will likely continue to be the blueprint of choice for private stablecoins, which may be issued by companies, funds, or even banks in the future.

In response to the demand for liquidity on blockchains and markets, organizations will be able to create and issue collateralized stablecoins by utilizing currently unused collateral in the form of various assets. In this sense, the value represented by that collateral can be utilized to provide direct liquidity to the market as needed.

As Tether’s stablecoin model is always fully backed by collateral, the amount of collateral being utilized to issue stablecoins is always in direct response to the need and demand for liquidity. As blockchains become more diverse and more integrated, there will emerge a need for liquidity in various different systems, which may or may not be interoperable.

Private stablecoins will be issued to satisfy this demand.

Tether’s collateralized stablecoin model is the most compatible with regulatory requirements which most private stablecoin issuers will most likely be expected to comply with. It is most easily able to be integrated into the world’s current regulatory frameworks and the world’s existing financial system.

Traditional assets, held by regulated custodians, become the known collateral used to issue the private stablecoins of the future.

While other approaches to stablecoins will continue to be experimented with, it is highly likely that Tether’s collateralized model will be the approach the vast majority of private stablecoins utilize in the future.

Additionally, Tether’s model helps strengthen national currencies instead of weakening them. For example, USD₮ further solidifies the use of the dollar globally both via the demand for collateral and its use as a unit of account. This is a critical benefit of Tether’s model, as it eliminates any potential conflict between the interests of national currencies and private stablecoin issuers. The interests of both parties become aligned and complementary, as private stablecoins empower the digital payment rails of the future.

For all of these reasons, Tether’s collateralized stablecoin model continues to be the dominant blueprint for stablecoins. This is likely to continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. Even in the present, other stablecoins adopting Tether’s model further strengthens and supports the innovation that Tether brought to market years ago!

We look forward to seeing everything the next generation of innovators will continue to build with Tether’s stablecoin blueprint!

Volatility, Stability, and Liquidity

Crypto markets are currently undergoing significant volatility, and we are witnessing leverage being flushed from the market. When leveraged traders and companies unwind, it can put enormous pressure on markets.

It is important to realize that Tether and USD₮ reserves are conservative, liquid, and transparent and proven to provide full redeemability to our customers even in the worst crypto market conditions as experienced in the past weeks.

Tether and USD₮ have faced and withstood countless black swan events, large redemptions, and market crashes- more than almost any other cryptocurrency except for Bitcoin.

Through all of these events, USD₮ has maintained its role as the preferred stablecoins for most users, exchanges, and businesses.

USD₮ is the most resilient and trusted stablecoin on the market and has strong backing as indicated by Tether’s attestations on the nature of USD₮ reserves.

The Fitch Ratings "Stablecoin Dashboard: 4Q21” independently states that Tether has the most detailed reporting, and also affirms that the liquidity of Tether’s portfolio has increased with its reduction of commercial paper.

This reduction of commercial paper has increased substantially since this report was made.

An Update on USD₮ Reserves

In Tether’s latest assurance opinion, Tether announced that over 47% of total USD₮ reserves are now US Treasuries and that commercial paper now makes up less than 25% of USD₮’s backing. 

Since this time, commercial paper has been reduced by an additional $5 billion and US treasury holdings have been increased by $5bn. 

Additionally, Tether is committed to further reducing commercial paper as part of its reserves and increasing its holding of US Treasuries. Tether is reducing its commercial paper holdings as rising interest rates create superior risk-reward opportunities with US Treasuries. While commercial paper is a secure and widely used cash equivalent, US Treasury bills are more liquid and provide greater flexibility when there are short-term liquidity demands. Coupled with rising yields, Treasuries are an attractive and secure collateral option for Tether's reserves. 

This change in Tether's reserves will be reflected in the next assurance opinion, published quarterly.

These announcements are part of Tether’s ongoing commitment to transparency and stability. Tether’s reserves are strong, conservative, and liquid. This is further demonstrated by Tether’s ability to honor over $10 billion in redemption requests within days.

Secured Loans

Part of Tether’s reserves (3.82%) are in the form of secured lending to non-affiliated entities.

During times of market volatility, when users are concerned about the solvency of crypto companies, it’s natural that there are questions around rather these loans pose any risk to Tether or USD₮.

The answer is no.

Tether’s loans are overcollateralized and any changes of risk due to financial circumstances of the companies who have borrowed capital are managed by Tether’s risk management team in real-time to avoid any impact on the stability of USD₮.

Redemptions and Competition 

Competition has been growing recently focusing on different use cases than Tether. For example we see competitors focusing more on being at the service of the banking industry, while Tether focuses its efforts on being the most used currency for peer to peer exchanges, remittances, a tool of freedom and inflation hedge for developing countries.

USD₮ is still not only the largest and most widely used stablecoin but the premiere choice for most trading. The overwhelming majority of trading occurs via USD₮ pairs. 

It's common for USD₮ to have 10x the trading volume of its largest competitor on a given day.

These metrics are all evidence of the confidence the market has in USD₮ and the unparalleled liquidity it has offered for years. 

It’s interesting to note also that while other stablecoins claim to have a strong redemption track record, every stablecoin apart from Tether has an average net balance between issuances and redemptions in a given timeframe - no others have been able to demonstrate 10% of redemptions in 48 hours. The bottom line, it’s to demonstrate when new issuances can cover redemption requests - but so far only Tether has demonstrated that it’s able to work efficiently and safely in the most volatile market conditions.

Tether is aware of rumours being spread that its commercial paper portfolio is 85% backed by Chinese or Asian commercial papers and being traded at a 30% discount. These rumours are completely false and likely spread to induce further panic in order to generate additional profits from an already stressed market. Tether condemns such attempts which oftentimes see simple users take the biggest hit, while few coordinated funds increase their profits.

In its latest assurance opinion  here, Tether announced that over 47% of total USD₮ reserves are now US Treasuries and that commercial paper makes up less than 25% of USD₮’s backing.

Tether can report that its current portfolio of commercial paper has since been further reduced to 11 billion (from 20 billion at the end of Q1 2022), and will be 8.4 billion by end June 2022. This will gradually decrease to zero without any incurrences of losses. All commercial papers are expiring and will be rolled into US Treasuries with a short maturity.

Regarding the recent events impacting the Celsius lending platform, Celsius position has been liquidated with no losses to Tether. Tether’s lending activity with Celsius (as with any other borrower) has always been overcollateralized. Tether has currently zero exposure to Celsius apart from a small investment made out of Tether equity in the company.

Tether is aware of other rumours being spread, suggesting that it has lending exposure to Three Arrows Capital - again this is categorically false.

For the true facts, refer to our most recent attestation and to  https://tether.to/en/transparency for the most up-to-date information.

The recent events impacting the Celsius lending platform and its native token CEL are an unfortunate result of market volatility and extreme market conditions. 

While Tether’s investment portfolio does include an investment in the company, representing a minimal part of our shareholders equity, there is no correlation between this investment and our own reserves or stability. Also Tether lending activity with Celsius (as with any other borrower) has always been overcollateralized and has no impact on our reserves. 

Please visit https://tether.to/en/transparency for the most up-to-date information.

British Virgin Islands, June 9, 2022 - Tether Operations Limited (“Tether”), the company operating the blockchain-enabled platform tether.to that powers the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, will launch Tether tokens (“USD₮”) on Tezos, a pioneering upgradable Proof-of-Stake blockchain. The addition of USD₮ to Tezos demonstrates its growing momentum as a thriving Proof-of-Stake blockchain which continues to build a reputation as the leading choice for brands and institutions looking to build the Web3 revolution.

Tether’s USD₮, now available on 12 blockchain networks, welcomes the Tezos ecosystem to the US $72 billion network. USD₮ on Tezos will power revolutionary applications across payments, DeFi, and more.

“We’re excited to launch USD₮ on Tezos, offering its growing and vibrant community access to the most liquid, stable, and trusted stablecoin in the digital token space,” said Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether. “Tezos is coming fast onto the scene and we believe that this integration will be essential to its long-term growth.”

Tezos is a unique network in the blockchain space, with nine upgrades, it is the only layer one blockchain network to successfully evolve and upgrade over time without relying on hard forks. Upgrades have decreased gas costs, increased transaction speed, and most recently, such upgrades even replaced Tezos’ consensus mechanism with Tenderbake, a modified BFT algorithm similar to Cosmos’ Tendermint. Tezos is set to continue its unprecedented track record with its next update which will introduce enshrined optimistic and smart contract roll-ups to the leading Proof-of-Stake network.

“With the introduction of USD₮, on and off ramps into the Tezos DeFi ecosystem are simplified and efficient. Tezos is an exemplary system with features and tools which have enabled innovative application designs not possible on other networks,” said Alessandro De Carli, Founder at Papers. “The launch of USD₮ on Tezos will undoubtedly unlock new DeFi products and I expect the impact on volume growth of the Tezos DeFi ecosystem to be remarkable.”

The launch of USD₮ on Tezos will further highlight Tether's dedication to pioneering collaboration and interoperability within the growing digital asset space. Tezos has a growing DeFi ecosystem which includes yield farming protocol Youves, decentralized exchange and EVM bridge Plenty, and more. Upon launch, Tether will be the largest stablecoin by market capitalization available within the network.

As the most liquid, stable, and innovative stablecoin, USD₮’s market capitalization has grown to over US $72 billion. USD₮ works across a diversity of different blockchains, including Algorand, Avalanche, Bitcoin Cash’s Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP), Ethereum, EOS, Liquid Network, Omni, Polygon, Tezos, Tron, Solana, and Statemine. Tether is driven to support and empower growing ventures and innovation in the blockchain space.

We are unsure what has led the Financial Times to take up such an agenda with Tether, or its obscure fascination with our executives. We believe that there are more important things to report on when it comes to the state of financial innovation than the personal lives of our company’s executives who are private citizens and principals at private companies. We also find it odd that a leading global publication is still fixated on a lawsuit that has been settled and responded to countless times over the past three years when there is so much exciting innovation happening every day right before our very eyes. 

What we do know is that time and time again, Tether has proven itself to be essential to the crypto ecosystem. A trailblazer in its category, Tether was the first stablecoin, has withstood multiple black swan events in crypto, and has never refused a redemption in its history. 

Trailblazers are a special breed in business -- they have very big visions and are laser-focused on removing challenges that stand in their way. Trailblazers are pioneers, those who take risks and go on a path that isn't already there, blazing a trail and leaving a path for others. Standing at the forefront of the biggest leap forward that the financial industry has ever seen, it's often that Tether is scrutinised more than others, especially its peers and competitors. 

However, Tether remains committed to leading not only in innovative technology but also in transparency and accountability to its customers, who use stablecoin to make tens of billions of dollars in trades every day. Tether is the first among its peers to disclose the composition of its reserves and deliver public attestations without misleading the public to think they were official audits. 

Tether’s executive leadership team understands its responsibility as the market leader and fully embraces its role in helping educate the world about how stablecoin technology fits into traditional finance, and how it will reshape payments technologies and the financial infrastructure of the world in decades to come.