In an era of controversy surrounding some of the world’s more famous ‘pegged’ currencies, Bittrex co-founder Richie Lai has announced that the exchange will be listing TrueUSD ($TUSD) on its platform, a currency that touts itself as “the world’s first legally-backed stable cryptocurrency.”
It's $TUSD.... we've listed it... Wallet is open now, market will be opening within the hour. @BittrexExchange
— Richie (@richiela) March 6, 2018
According to a Trust Token (the firm behind TrueUSD) blog post announcing the listing, “TrueUSD offers token-holders full USD collateral, regular attestations… and legal protections to redeem TrueUSD for USD.” The currency was launched in mid-January of this year.
On a recent episode of Rahul Sood’s UnikrnRadio podcast, Bittrex CEO Bill Shihara announced that Bittrex could soon be integrating USD deposits in the near future; no specific timeline was given.
TrueUSD is trading live on Bittrex! Now traders can use the first fully collateralized and legally-backed Stablecoin . $TUSD https://t.co/Wy7pxymfV4
— TrustToken (@TrustToken) March 6, 2018
What Are Pegged Currencies?
In the unendingly volatile world of cryptocurrency, pegged coins have positioned themselves as safe havens for value; instead of leaving assets in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies that can lose their value, some traders choose to temporarily convert their crypto into a pegged token so that none of its value will be lost.
Tether, which is arguably the most popular of the pegged tokens, has been washed with controversy over the past several months as serious doubts about if each USDT token is actually backed by a corresponding US dollar have arisen. A lack of professional audits and too-close-for-comfort ties between Tether and the rather infamous Bitfinex exchange has also had many members of the crypto community raising their eyebrows.
There is certainly a need for a more trustworthy pegged currency; if TrueUSD can manage to position itself as the new industry standard, Tether might just be out of luck.
