USDT Selling on Curve, Uniswap Spooks Traders Amid Bitcoin Drop

Millions worth of USDT$1.0001 stablecoins appeared to be selling off on popular Uniswap and Curve pools Thursday morning, sparking early signs of concern among traders.

USDT, which usually trades around $1, lost its peg to the U.S. currency and dropped as low as $0.9968, according to CoinMarketCap data. The token was recently trading at $0.998.

USDT balances on Curve’s popular 3pool, a stablecoin swapping pool made up of USDT, USDC, and DAI, rose to over 72% early on Thursday – suggesting traders had exchanged tens of millions of USDT in favor of stablecoins USD coin (USDC) and DAI$0.9997.

Curve’s 3pool now holds over $300 million of USDT and nearly $55 million each of dai and usdc.

The imbalance suggests an increased preference for DAI and USDC over tether. Such sentiment was previously observed during Terra’s implosion last May and the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in November, as CoinDesk previously reported.

Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino suggested in a tweet that some traders could be looking to “capitalize on the general sentiment” in the broader crypto markets, which has dipped in the past 24 hours.

“Markets are edgy these days, so it's easy for attackers to capitalize on this general sentiment,” Ardoino said. “But at Tether we're ready as always. Let them come. We're ready to redeem any amount.”

CORRECTION (June 15: 12:17 UTC): Corrects spelling of Ardoino's surname; adds tether loss of dollar peg in second paragraph.