Stable coins, which are backed by fiat currency, have become an integral part of the crypto ecosystem over the past couple of years, and in that regard, Tether (USDT) is possibly the most well known. However, the very fact that it is backed by fiat makes it possible for it to be prone to certain errors, and that is exactly what happened yesterday when the team behind USDT made a mistake that had an effect on the wider crypto market for some time.
Administrative Error
In an astonishing development, the members at Tether transferred $5 billion worth of USDT tokens to the TRON Blockchain from Omni Layer, instead of the $50 million that they had originally meant. All of a sudden, the market was flooded with billions of dollars in Tether that had been created out of the thin air due to an administrative error on the part of Tether team members.
However, the team got to work quickly, and just four minutes after the transfer had been made, $500 million worth of Tether tokens were destroyed. Later on, $4.5 billion worth of token were burned in order to neutralize the error that had occurred in the first place. The problem emanated from Polinex, a highly popular and well-regarded crypto exchange. Tether had actually requested the exchange to take care of the swap, and that is when the error took place. Polinex clarified the issue in a statement.
>> Bitcoin Tumbles Below $10K Mark as Crypto Market Turns Bearish
On the other hand, the Chief Technology Officer of Tether, Paulo Ardaino, and crypto exchange Bitfinex stated that they proceeded to burn the tokens quickly enough. He took to Twitter and shared a tweet in which the burn transactions of Tether had been recorded. However, he conceded that such an error could have had a debilitating effect on the entire crypto market. It is the sort of error that can always happen when it comes to currency generation in which there is a human element, but such things usually do not happen with traditional cryptocurrencies.
At the time of writing, Tether is trading higher by 1% at $1.
Featured image: DepositPhotos © REDPIXEL
