Chinese bitcoin early-adopter, Zhao Dong, wrote on Thursday that Tether has $3 billion in reserves. However, the claims are deepening suspicions in the crypto-trading world, as Dong is a shareholder in Tether's parent company, Bitfinex.

Dong blogged on the Chinese social network, Weibo, that he had seen $1.8 billion and $1.1 billion balances in the Tokyo-based bank accounts of Tether (USDT) and Bitfinex, respectively. The claim comes as observers express doubts regarding Tether, which pegs itself to the US dollar based on 1:1 currency reserves. Despite the affirmations that it carries out regular audits, the company has never published any. Zhao Dong stated that he saw the records alongside Lao Mao, the CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Big.one.

“Lao Mao (and I) just had a look at the USD account of Tether and Bitfinex in Giancarlo’s (Boss of BFX, CFO) room, in which Tether’s account holds 1.8 billion USD and Bitfinex holds 1.1 billion USD. The total number of the two accounts is around 3 billion USD, which is beyond the current circulated supply of USDT. This debunks all rumors around USDT,” affirms Dong.

Readers expressed doubt, however. One person commented, "You have to have a report from third-party lawyers or certified accountants. What you say doesn't matter." Another wrote, "or a photo of the report."

Mao's nod to Dong's claim might be significant, especially that Mao professed his own extreme doubts about USDT back in a November post (Mandarin).

"Tether's bank accounts do not have that much money because they keep borrowing more than their actual bank deposits at the exchange/bank," Lao wrote, according to a raw translation. He goes on to highlight numbers from March 2017, showing only $44 million in reserves, which casts doubt as to USDT's growth.

Since January 1st, however, 850 million USDT have been minted, nearly doubling the available total. As concerns about Tether rise, competing stablecoins have seen debuts. Last Wednesday, TrustToken debuted its asset-backed TrueUSD. In December, MakerDAO debuted its algorithmic stablecoin DAI. Others may soon be on the way.

Mary Callahan

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