Crypto influencer Adam Cochran recently alleged that crypto giant Binance was engaging in the manipulation of the world’s largest stablecoin Tether USD (USDT). Cochran cited on-chain research which showed that an address responsible for dumping hundreds of millions of USDT was funded by Binance.
Adam Cochran took to Twitter earlier today to share his take on USDT’s ongoing manipulation:
Ok so last week we had all those CZ tweets saying “stablecoins weren’t stable.” And listing new sketchy ones
— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 3, 2023
And now @paoloardoino pointing out Tether manipulation, while Binance related bots sell hundreds of millions of Tether into Dai over the past months… https://t.co/htENYSY09H
According to Cochran, the wallet that had been swapping massive amounts of USDT into the decentralized DAI stablecoin was funded by Binance. Several other addresses associated with the said wallet had been market-selling USDT over the past year. Cochran’s on-chain analysis revealed that the wallet received thousands of Ether from Binance.
The wallet in question started swapping USDT to DAI about three months ago, however, Cochran alleged that the wallet may be controlled by Binance itself. The associated addresses were reportedly receiving stablecoins such as BUSD from the crypto exchange and redeeming them. Cochran told his followers that this process began several months ago and was executed on purpose, given that the trades resulted in a loss.
Paolo Ardoino, the Chief Technology Officer at Tether, took note of the manipulation of USDT and questioned the timing of the suspicious selling pressure on his firm’s stablecoins. In a subtle dig at Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao, Ardoino highlighted that two new stablecoins listed by Binance were benefitting from the market share lost by leading stablecoins like USDT and USD Coin (USDC).
In a follow-up to his initial tweet on the matter, Cochran speculated that Binance and Zhao were likely looking to launch their own algorithmic stablecoin, and the attacks against existing stablecoins were setting the stage for the same. USDT and USDC, the two largest stablecoins by market capitalization, saw their market share decline over the past few weeks, which coincided with the alleged market selling by the Binance-controlled wallet.
