Tether Exploring Two New Stablecoins to Compete With China and Facebook's Libra

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The stablecoin company Tether is reportedly considering the launch of two new crypto assets.

One coin would be pegged to commodities like gold and crude oil. The other would be pegged to the official currency of the People’s Republic of China, the renminbi.

Bitfinex shareholder Zhao Dong tells Cointelegraph that its sister company Tether is looking to lower the risk involved in creating stablecoins that are solely backed 1:1 by fiat currency in the bank.

Tether has long faced accusations that its leading stablecoin USDT is not fully backed by the US dollar. Dong addressed the concerns, calling reports denying the currency’s reserves fake news.

“Tether is fully backed by reserves, out of 4 billion existing USDT about 3.35 billion are now in securities and 650 million are being lent to Bitfinex. Bitfinex has been raising 1 billion with its LEO token IEO and could easily pay back Tether any time (as a matter of fact it already paid 100 million last month)…

Even if you don’t calculate this 650 million as reserves, the total amount backed by USD is 83.75% (3,350/4000) and not 72% as fake news are reporting.”

Tether’s exploration of a renminbi-pegged crypto asset comes just after China announced the coming launch of its own digital asset.

China’s central bank has registered a number of patents describing how its cryptocurrency will work. The asset would be available to people and companies through a mobile wallet app and could be instantly exchanged for the Chinese yuan.