USDT is a stablecoin (stable-value cryptocurrency) that mirrors the price of the U.S. dollar, issued by a Hong Kong-based company, Tether. The token’s peg to the USD is achieved via maintaining a sum of commercial paper, fiduciary deposits, cash, reserve repo notes, and treasury bills in reserves that is equal in USD value to the number of USDT in circulation.
The stated purpose of USDT is to combine the unrestricted nature of cryptocurrencies — which can be sent between users without a trusted third-party intermediary — with the stable value of the U.S. dollar.
Stablecoins are increasingly used as an inflation hedge in recent times; compared to keeping fiat currency in a savings account averaging 0.06%, users can lend their stablecoins and earn yields ranging from 3% to as high as 20%. However, keep in mind that regulatory, platform risks and more entail.
Note: the [hts] subscript denotes that this asset has been bridged through hashport.
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