Most major digital currencies suffered massive drops over the last 24 hours, but one token actually appeared to have posted gains.
It’s called tether, and the digital asset aims to link the cryptocurrency environment to the fiat world by tying each token to government-backed currency.
Of the top 50 digital currencies listed by market value on price-checking website CoinMarketCap, the tether token was the only one that was up over the previous day.
The digital currency traded at $1.04 at 10:05 a.m. HK/SIN, according to CoinMarketCap data, and was up 3.23 percent from a day ago. It had a market cap of $1.69 billion.
On the other hand, the site showed that major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum and ripple were down 15, 16 and 24 percent over the same period, respectively.
Last year, tether was reportedly hacked and nearly $31 million worth of its tokens were stolen.
On its website, tether claims that its tokens are fully backed by fiat currency assets that the company holds in its reserve account. That, the firm says, prevents the volatility usually seen in cryptocurrencies. Per its website, one tether token is equal to $1.
But tether has seen a fair amount of public criticism, which has included claims that the tokens are not meaningfully backed by U.S. dollars and has also touched on its apparent connection to the British Virgin Islands — which was demonstrated in leaked documents known as the Paradise Papers.
