Millions of Tether (USDT) stablecoins were sold on popular Uniswap and Curve pools on Thursday morning. This caused early signs of concern among traders. Because the fall of the Bitcoin price has already negatively affected the market. On the other hand, the XRP price also erased the Hinman documents gains. Here are the details…
While Bitcoin is falling, there is movement in these coins
A surprising trend has emerged among decentralized finance (DeFi) users in the wake of the recent cryptocurrency market crash, triggered by news that the Fed has halted rate hikes. Data from Curve shows a notable shift in the conversion of funds from USDT to other stablecoins such as USDC and DAI within the 3pool. Consisting of USDT, USDC and DAI, 3pool is the largest stablecoin pool on Curve. Over the past 48 hours, the USDT rate in the pool has witnessed a clear imbalance as it has risen from an initial 30% to a staggering 51%. Meanwhile, USDC and DAI rates in 3pool fell to 24.5% and 25.2%, respectively.
USDT balances on Curve’s popular 3pool, a stablecoin swap pool made up of USDT, USDC and DAI, jumped over 72 percent early Thursday. This shows that traders are swapping tens of millions of USDT in favor of the stablecoins USD Coin (USDC) and Dai (DAI). Curve’s 3pools are currently worth over 300 million USDT, with DAI and USDC each holding around $55 million. This imbalance shows that DAI and USDC are more preferred over Tether. Such sentiment was previously observed during Terra’s boom last May and the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in November.
Additionally, in March of this year, the largest stablecoin pool on Curve saw the USDT percentage drop below 5 percent as DeFi users fled USDC during the US banking crisis. These events fueled speculation as to whether someone had prior knowledge of the USDT-related information and made decisions to convert this stablecoin into alternative solutions. It is also possible to target USDT, similar to the attack on UST at Curve’s 4pool, which caused a depegging event on May 8, 2022, followed by a complete collapse of the LUNA-UST ecosystem within five days.
Tether CEO responded
Tether CTO Paolo Arduino suggested in a tweet that some traders may be looking to “take advantage of the general sentiment” in the broader crypto markets that have fallen over the past 24 hours. “The markets are tense these days, so it’s easy for attackers to take advantage of this general feeling. But at Tether we are ready as always. Let them come. We are ready to pay back any amount they want,” he said.
XRP price is also in trouble
XRP prices, on the other hand, dropped 8.5% in one day, the largest drop among the top cryptocurrencies. The token has slumped to this month’s low of 46.18 cents. The price of XRP hit almost 56 cents on Tuesday as traders bet the release of a much-anticipated document regarding an ongoing lawsuit between payments firm Ripple Labs and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could push XRP higher.
As we reported on Kriptokoin.com, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple in 2020 alleging that the firm was selling unregistered securities, namely XRP. However, Ripple has distanced itself from the token that has historically powered some of its products and the XRP Ledger network. XRP surged earlier this week after the emails of William Hinman, former director of the SEC’s Corporate Finance Division, were published. Optimistic traders bet that Hinman’s speech would underscore the SEC’s flawed rationale for accepting the token as a security and signal a positive outcome in the ongoing litigation between Ripple Labs and the SEC.