Crypto Exchange Bitfinex announced on Tuesday, December 4th, that it has listed four new stablecoins: USDC, TUSD, PAX, and GUSD. Now, both Bitfinex and its “spinoff,” Ethfinex, offer support for six major stablecoins--Tether Dollars (USDT) and Dai by MakerDAO are also supported on both platforms.
“At Bitfinex and Ethfinex, we’re dedicated to providing high quality, an unbiased meeting place for every ecosystem and customer,” explained an official announcement from the exchange.
From today customers can access all major stablecoins at Bitfinex, as we introduce USDC, True USD, Paxos, and Gemini USD to our existing Tether and Dai offering.
Read more about our recent additions here: https://t.co/VCGSIfZbPd. — Bitfinex (@bitfinex) December 4, 2018
Addition of Stablecoins Could Imply an Effort to Distance Bitfinex from Tether
The adoption of these four other stablecoins can be seen as a step in the right direction for the exchange after it has faced several years of criticism from the cryptocurrency community over close ties between Bitfinex and Tether.
For a time, the two companies shared two key executives, Giancarlo Devasini and Phil Potter. The close ties, along with an explosion in the amount of Tether dollars in circulation, caused a number of conspiracy theories to form, alleging that both companies were working together to “print” Tether dollars that had no actual asset-backing; a years-long lack of a professional audit did not help either company’s case in the matter.
Things became even more serious when the New York Times published the findings of two researchers at the University of Texas suggesting that there could be some truth to the theories.
However, the companies seem to be taking some efforts to dispel the rumors and clean up their images. Potter, who was serving as Bitfinex’ chief strategy officer, resigned from the company in June. At the time, he explained that Bitfinex’ decision to pivot away from the United States was the main reason. Now, the listing of these four other stablecoins may suggest that Bitfinex is attempting to distance itself from Tether.
USDC is Making Waves
USDC, the dollar-pegged Stablecoin created by Coinbase and Circle, seems to be on a pathway to widespread adoption.
#USDC momentum continues, Bitfinex USDC launch, and now over 70 companies supporting USDC. https://t.co/kg9lU39qP7 @Poloniex @circlepay @centre_io
— Jeremy Allaire (@jerallaire) December 6, 2018
Bitfinex has now become one of more than 35 exchange platforms that offer trading options with USDC. Others include Coinhub, BitMax, Bitfinace, Fetch, Ethex, Ethfinex, and Tokenize Exchange. According to a blog post by Circle, more than 70 “exchanges, protocols, platforms, applications, and wallets” have adopted the use of USDC.
