Tether Launches Stablecoin Pegged to British Pound at a Time of $10 Billion in Market Capitalization

The stablecoin pegged to the British pound will be deployed by Tether despite the recent crypto market turmoil.

Pound-pegged stablecoin launched

Tether, the company behind the largest USDT by market capitalization, has announced the launch of another fiat-stable coin called GBPT, pegged to the value of the British pound. It is the latest move to diversify the company’s products following the launch of a Mexican peso-pegged cryptocurrency called MXNT.

As of now, GBPT is Tether’s fourth Fiat-Pegged crypto asset. This stablecoin will be issued for the first time and operate on the Ethereum blockchain. GBPT is pegged to the value of the British pound, the oldest fiat currency in the world, first issued in 1694.

Tether’s announcement said:

“GBPT will be a stable digital asset pegged 1:1 to the British Pound. GBPT will be built by the team of trusted developers behind tether USDT and operate under tether.to. The creation of GBPT will bring sterling into the blockchain world and provide a faster, less expensive option for asset transfers.”

USDT is the largest stablecoin by market capitalization today with $68 billion and the project was only recently launched on the Polygon network. Over the past two months, more than 12 billion USDT has been removed from circulation.

In the $960 billion crypto economy, the market capitalization of USDT dominates 7.035% and is the third largest crypto asset market capitalization among over 20,000 crypto assets.
Strong fiat currencies are slowly being introduced into the blockchain arena. Tether’s GBPT launch announcement comes shortly after Circle’s euro coin (EUROC) hit the market. EUROC is Circle’s second fiat-pegged stablecoin, while Tether has issued various stablecoins over the years. Additionally, Tether has a stablecoin pegged to the Chinese yuan called CNHT and a euro-based stablecoin called EURT. At the end of May, Tether launched a fiat-pegged token pegged to the value of the Mexican peso called MXNT. Another token pegged to the value of an ounce of gold called XAUT, Tether gold or XAUT has an overall market valuation of around $458,303,598.

Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether said in a statement:

“We believe the UK is the next frontier for blockchain innovation and wider implementation of cryptocurrencies for financial markets. We hope to help lead this innovation by providing crypto users worldwide access to GBP-denominated stablecoins issued by the largest stablecoin issuer. Tether is ready to work with UK regulators to make this goal a reality and looks forward to continued adoption of Tether stablecoins.”

Tether (USDT) Market Cap Drops Over $10 Billion in May

During the unexpected negative swings of the crypto market, Tether (USDT) lost its peg against the USD during the massive market-wide bearish correction in May. This led to value. The market for one of the most used stablecoins dropped dramatically.

USDT remains the largest stablecoin by market cap as of June 2022. Despite losing its peg, the stablecoin remains among the top 5 digital assets by market capitalization.

According to financial reports as of the end of May, Tether’s market capitalization is in the range of $72.5 billion, down 12% from its capitalization at the beginning of the month. As of April, USDT had a trading volume of 61.42 billion USD, corresponding to a market capitalization of about 83.16 billion USD.
The negative market sentiment led many retail and institutional investors to dump digital assets on May 9. This had a huge impact on the USDT market capitalization.

The drop in investor interest in May is attributed to unfavorable geopolitical events, a stronger dollar, renewed interest in precious metals such as gold, interest rate hikes, and more. leading to a sharp increase in demand for government bonds and bills.

The large volume of USDT-related transactions reached a high of 19,510, when USDT lost its peg and fell to the $0.9747 region on May 12. This corresponds to a trading volume of 31.8 billion USDT at the same time. price.

With USDT losing the lock, returning to $0.9747, the trading volume of 31.8 billion USDT is worth 31 billion USD respectively. USDT opened on May 12 with a trading price of $0.9959, reached an intraday high at $0.9977, tested an intraday low of $0.9485 and closed daily at $0.9976. Until now, USDT has returned to the 1-for-1 peg to the US dollar. The 24-hour trading volume reached $38.48 billion with a total market capitalization of $66.8 billion.