For all my crypto concerns, I love that I’m able to share this kind of thing:

The crypto universe
Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist
A Crypto Focus on Ethereum though

Here is the Ethereum price chart:

Ethereum price chart

So the Ethereum price is on a bit of a decline at the moment.

If you could just park that thought while I give you some background.

In case you haven’t read my post on Tether, you should know that I have some real questions about the way that bitcoin trades have been working on the Bitfinex exchange (which has the largest volume of Bitcoin trades in the world). There is something strange going on there.

Every time new Tether makes it onto the exchange, there seems to be a rally in the bitcoin price. And when the issue of new Tether slows (or stops), the bitcoin price falls. For example, there haven’t been any new Tether issues for the last week or so, and we’ve seen a massive decline in the Bitcoin price. Perhaps those things are unrelated – but there’s an awful lot of coincidence here.

Ethfinex and Tether ERC20

Given all that, here’s an interesting thing:

Announcing the ERC20 Tether: Tether & Ethfinex collaborate on the development of ERC20 Tethers.

That is:

  • Ethfinex is Bitfinex’s new ethereum-based trading platform.
  • Next week, Ethfinex is launching a new Tether-like token, in conjunction with Tether, known as Tether ERC20.

I guess it’s a test, really. We’ll have to see what happens to the Ethereum price once Tether ERC20 launches on Monday.

But perhaps we’ll suddenly be overwhelmed by news stories about the sudden widespread spike in Ethereum acceptance.

Rolling Alpha posts opinions on finance, economics, and sometimes things that are only loosely related. Follow me on Twitter @RollingAlpha, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rollingalpha. Also, check out the RA podcast on iTunes: The Story of Money.