<center>https://i.imgsafe.org/13/131c70084d.png</center>


## Hey Guys! 

Today I wanted to analyze Tether (also known as USDT). I have a feeling something is not right.

Tether is the most popular cryptocurrency traders rely on being worth 1 US dollar. Up till now the company has delivered the 1:1 exchange rate (with a few concerning deviations though). 

The value of Tether comes from the fact that the company pledges to hold a reserve of 1 dollar for each Tether coin that is out there. However, there are concerns whether this truly is happening.

There are two things which are very concerning. 
1. Owning Tether coins does not give you legal right to claim US dollars. 
2. So far there is no third-party confirmation of the reserve backing up Tethers.
<br/>

# No legal right
On their ["Legal" page](https://tether.to/legal/) they strip away their liability to pay you back in case they want to quit the company.
>_There is no contractual right or other right or legal claim against us to **redeem or exchange your Tethers for money.** We do not guarantee any right of redemption or exchange of Tethers by us for money. There is no guarantee against losses when you buy, trade, sell, or redeem Tethers._

Even if this was a trustworthy company (because all crypto start-ups are legit right?) in case of backrupcy, we technically would have no right to claim back our money. On this point, I already wouldn't trust it.

Those few sentences could make it very hard for our lawyers to find a good defense and in the mean time they be like:
<center> <h1>Let it rain!!</h1>
https://media.giphy.com/media/5fBH6z8aMV1RbA4FaSc/giphy.gif 
</center>
<br/>
Maybe if something really bad happens we could go to their parent company [Bitfinex](https://www.bitfinex.com/). But wait that is a crypto exchange. What do we know about the legitimacy of most crypto exchanges today? Most of them aren't even legal. 

# Transparancy

 This is what is on their ["Transparancy"](https://wallet.tether.to/transparency) page

<center>https://img1.steemit.com/800x500/https://i.imgsafe.org/0a/0a02702b9f.jpeg </center>
<br/>
First of all if you click on the link, you will notice that this is the whole page. For trying to be transparant they give very little information. On this page they show their real-time reserve and they are telling us why they are always transparant: the coins are backup, they are audited and that we have 24/7 access to their bank account.

People have been concerned about the audit claim, because up till now there have been __no public released audits.__

In their [statement](https://tether.to/tether-update/) released 2 days ago they said the following about this:
> _We are aware of online discussions about Tether’s lack of publicly-available audits. Periodic audits of our bank balances have been performed by the Taiwan-based auditing firm TOPSUN CPAs & Co. The results of those audits were for the benefit of shareholders and were not in a form suitable for public consumption (to begin with, they were in Mandarin)._

Btw I googled TOPSUN CPAs & Co, but there are no searches which pops up. Doesn't mean they are lying, but it adds to the suspicion.

Anyhow, the rest of it:

>_Nonetheless, we have asked them to prepare the following attestations (PDFs linked) in English, for release to the community, covering December 31, 2016; January 31,2017; February 28, 2017; and, March 31, 2017. As we are no longer banking in Taiwan, and given that we are achieving substantial scale, we have engaged Friedman, LLP, in New York, to perform comprehensive balance sheet audits on a quarterly basis going back to Dec 31, 2016. We will share those results with you as they become available in the coming weeks or months._

So in the coming months (weeks hopefully) we should see third-party reports. Until then I am holding my thoughts about this subject. 

# Conclusion

There are a lot of shady things going on with Tether. At the moment I feel like most traders have little choice on most exchanges when it comes to a stable currency. That is why they "have to" trust Tether. 

Whether it is legit is up to you to decide. For now they have done a good job at staying stable. But that could soon be reversed. 

I would say be careful do not put all your money on it if you don't have to. 

_One more note though: Each day Tether's reserve is increasing in millions. [Begin June](https://coinmarketcap.om/assets/tether/historical-data/?start=20160906&end=20170906) the total supply was $108,739,000 and now it is $389,142,712. That is an increase of almost **300 million dollars** in 3 months!! And all that need to be backed up..._
___
<br/>

### I hope you all found this useful :)

### Don't forget to follow me if you want more articles likes this!
<br/>

<center>
>_With Steemit we have the power to create our own future_
>-_Future Thinker_
</center>