Tether fires back; Easy Crypto closes Series A funding round

Transcript

Tether fires back against Bloomberg that got our newsroom talking.

Welcome to The Daily Forkast October 8, 2021. I’m Justin Solomon of Forkast.News covering all things blockchain filling in for Editor-in-Chief, Angie Lau.

The world’s number one stablecoin is under scrutiny, with a damning report by Bloomberg claiming the currency is not fully backed as the company claims it is. We’ll look at what Tether had to say on that and much more coming up.

Now let’s get you up to speed from Asia to the world.

First up, Tether responded quickly to Bloomberg’s claims, saying the article is, quote another attempt to undermine them.

Forkast.News Carolyn Wright reports,

As well as claiming Tether is not fully backed, the Bloomberg article claimed the company is using its reserves to make crypto bank loans.

Its alleged Chief Financial Officer, Giancarlo Devasini, used company reserves to make investments which would undermine Tether’s claims the token is fully back to 100% of the time. Tether denied this, pointing to its quarterly assurance attestation issued in August.

Reporter Zeke Faux also canvas Wall Street traders to see if any had ever seen any trades made by the company that supposedly holds US$30 billion in commercial paper short term loans. He said that as none of them had, eyebrows should be raised.

Tether responded by saying the company’s track record speaks for itself and questioned the reliability of a major source – John Betts, who was fired as Tether’s banker. It also highlighted an ongoing court case where he is accused of self-dealing at the expense of customers.

Tether has been in legal trouble in the past. In February, it settled an investigation by the New York State Attorney General’s Office, examining whether it and sister firm Bitfinex sought to cover up an US$850 million loss in funds. Neither company admitted wrongdoing but were required to submit quarterly reports on their reserves as part of the settlement.

For Forkast.News, I’m Carolyn Wright.

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s Easy Crypto has closed an US$11.75 million series A funding round.

Led by sovereign backed Nuance Connected Capital, the company says the funding round was oversubscribed by 50%.

Forkast.News Lachlan Keller has more.

The exchange says in addition to the successful funding round, a further investment of almost US$7 million has also been indicated by fund managers for a series A+ round.

Easy Crypto has recorded over three quarters of a billion U.S dollars in sales since it was established three years ago, and says its user numbers have multiplied five times in the past 12 months.

The company told Forkast.News, New Zealand has a lot to offer the crypto space, saying regulation is evolving at a similar speed to Australia, with discussions starting to get underway in parliament.And that’s not all:

“Furthermore, New Zealand is very, very into their renewable energy and I think there is potential as they’re there as well for, you know, bitcoin mining or other mining facilities, proof-of-work type mining facilities that could come out of that, as well.”

As for future company goals, Butler says an IPO is on the radar, but that’s a long term aim. In the meantime, the focus is on making products better for customers.

For Forkast.News, I’m Lachlan Keller.

And finally today – confused about how to support your favorite musician in the ever growing NFT space?

Worry not – things are getting easier.

Timmy Shen takes a look at what fans and the industry are doing to help as part of a Forkast.News special series.

With some music industry players and artists going all out on NFTs as they look to generate new streams of revenue, it can be daunting for those who aren’t crypto active to get involved.

But while one expert told Forkast.News it can be a steep learning curve, like minded fans are only too eager to support others,

“Even if fans are not familiar with the process or how things work. They will teach you, they will team up, they will come up with like how to do’s and like tutorials and everything on YouTube, on Twitter, in like seven different languages.”

And some NFT platforms are making moves to help cut through the jargon and make it easier to lead people in.

Taiwan based OURSONG, which features huge collections of music related NFTs, is one of them.

“I think our on-boarding process getting for the average person is is much easier than it was before, but there’s definitely a lot more room for improvement, and that’s one area that we’re very focused on.”

OURSONG also says it has incorporated PayPal as a payment method to help make fans feel less intimidated.

For Forkast.News, I’m Timmy Shen.

If you want to learn more about the world of music NFTs, you can check out the series at Forkast.News.

And that’s The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia. For more visit Forkast.News.

Like what you see? Want more? Don’t forget to subscribe, hit like and share. I’m Justin Solomon. Until next time