Shaky USDT Price Stirs Speculation Tied to Alameda Reserves, Tether Freezes 46 Million Tokens

Amid the market fluctuations on Thursday, data shows the stablecoin tether temporarily tapped a low of $0.961 per unit. Tether’s market fluctuations have affected the decentralized finance (defi) protocol Curve’s 3pool, as the stablecoin pool has become unbalanced Thursday morning. Furthermore, at 9:35 a.m., a report disclosed that Tether has frozen more than 46 million tethers at the request of law enforcement.

**Editor’s Note: This article’s last paragraph was updated on Nov. 10, 2022, at 3:10 p.m. (ET) to reflect a comment from a Tether spokesperson.

Data from coingecko.com indicates that tether (USDT) temporarily lost parity with the U.S. dollar on Thursday (ET). The web portal notes that the value quickly slipped to $0.961 per unit, but metrics from coinmarketcap.com indicate a Nov. 10, 2022 low at $0.981 per unit.

Out of the $213 billion in global trade volume today, USDT has seen $106.69 billion in 24-hour global trades. There are rumors circulating that FTX’s Alameda Research holds a great deal of USDT and has been using the assets on Curve’s 3pool.

Tether’s CTO Paolo Ardoino has denied the claims and said “Wow. Must suck to have a worse understanding of finance than an old lady running a cashier.” The Tether CTO added that “[Tether] processed ~700M redemptions in last 24h. No issues. We keep going.”

The crypto community has also been monitoring an Ethereum address allegedly associated with FTX’s quantitative trading firm Alameda Research and watching Curve’s 3pool very closely.

At press time, the number of tethers on Curve’s 3pool dominates by 77.69% and the number of DAI tokens equates to 11.27%. Circle’s usd coin (USDC) equates to 11.02% and the current balances on Curve’s 3pool represent the most off-balance 3pool has been since the Terra collapse last May.

On Nov. 10, 2022, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) told the public Alameda Research was winding down trading. In an apology thread posted to Twitter, SBF said: “First, one way or another, Alameda Research is winding down trading.”

“They aren’t doing any of the weird things that I see on Twitter–and nothing large at all. And one way or another, soon they won’t be trading on FTX anymore,” SBF added addressing the rumors.

At 9:40 a.m. (ET), tether (USDT) was trading for $0.99 to $1.01 per unit, after showing some slight fluctuations during the early morning trading sessions. The most active USDT exchange on Thursday is Binance, according to today’s metrics.

According to a report published by Coindesk, at the request of law enforcement (LE), the stablecoin issuer Tether froze 46.3 million tethers. “We are starting to receive requests from LE to temporarily freeze assets while investigation occur,” a Tether executive explained to Coindesk reporter Oliver Knight.

In a note sent to Bitcoin.com News, a Tether spokesperson told our newsdesk that the firm “can confirm on the background that a freeze occurred.”

“While we cannot specifically comment, Tether routinely has open dialogue with law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice, as part of our commitment to cooperation, transparency, and accountability,” the Tether spokesperson’s message said.

What do you think about the tether fluctuations today and the rumors surrounding Alameda Research’s tether reserves? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.