Recent research shows that there is an inverse relationship between the percentage of the Tether stablecoin on exchanges and Bitcoin’s price.
Recent research shows that there is an inverse relationship between the percentage of the Tether (USDT) stablecoin on exchanges and Bitcoin’s (BTC) price.
Cryptocurrency market insights firm Santiment published analysis showing that the percentage of USDT held on exchanges is inversely related to Bitcoin’s price. In a May 4 tweet, the firm noted that the recent correction probably is not a trend inversion in Bitcoin’s movement:
“In spite of the minor $BTC correction over the weekend, prices are beginning to rebound close to $9,000 again. According to our metrics, one thing that is still trending in the right direction is the percent of $USDT on exchanges. As this chart clearly indicates, there is an inverse correlation between Bitcoin's price and USDT's supply on exchanges.”
Source:
https://twitter.com/santimentfeed/status/1257381863452225537Santiment also explained that since the percentage of USDT held on exchanges is decreasing, Bitcoin could go beyond $9,000 again.
Neither Santiment nor Tether answered Cointelegraph’s inquiry as of press time.
Stablecoins’ market caps grow
As the cryptocurrency market saw a major downturn in mid-March, altcoins saw their market caps grow. Still, as Cointelegraph reported at the time, Tether — the largest stablecoin by total market value — only gained about 0.5% in four weeks, while Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) saw a 40% increase.
Furthermore, during the recent Bitcoin’s rise to $9,000 Tether minted over 160 million new tokens within 24 hours in just two transactions.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/research-shows-inverse-correlation-between-usdt-on-crypto-exchanges-and-bitcoins-price....
Offering this as a different perspective to "tether is bitcoin market manipulation" pop culture media. I would guess inverse correlations between tether and bitcoin have arisen in the past. None of us pay close enough attention to tether metrics to notice it. Thankfully we have independent firms like Santiment to point these things out.
I've always thought the market cap of tether trading volume was too low to account for bitcoin price movements. The real fuel for bitcoin's 2017 ATH may have been provided by cross platform arbitrage. Driven by african and foreign crypto markets trading btc more than 20% higher than market averages in other regions. Just my $0.02.