Crypto Spotlight: A Guide to Tether's USDT and P2P Trading

When it comes to stability in the cryptocurrency market, Tether’s USDT is well known by many. Until now there haven’t been many ways to exchange USDT privately, as it’s often traded and stored by people on centralized exchanges, however you can now trade it on LocalCoinSwap with all the privacy and freedom that comes with peer-to-peer (P2P) trading.

In our second Crypto Spotlight series, we take a look at Tether’s USDT and find out a little more about it and discuss ways that you can take advantage of this cryptocurrency to make money or start a business opportunity in the world of P2P trading.

What is a Stable Coin?

A stable coin is simply a cryptocurrency that is linked (or tethered) to another asset and is designed to minimize volatility that is typically inherent in cryptocurrency. In most cases, a stable coin is typically linked to a national-backed dollar however some other blockchain projects are working on tethering digital assets to natural resources, or precious metals like gold as, ironically, fiat itself is quite a volatile asset also. Other use cases for stable coins are prediction markets, derivatives, and options. Stable coins are important as conventional cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, trade at wildly fluctuating prices and therefore their purchasing power can be highly unstable. If you are as interested as we are about the topic of stable coins, you can find more on Wikipedia. It’s a fascinating read.

What is USDT?

Launched in 2014, USDT is currently ranked 7th in terms of market capitalization. It's purpose was originally to give people access to more of the stability that typically comes with large fiat currencies, such as the US dollar, while still maintaining the ease of transaction provided by cryptocurrency. Tether leverages blockchain technology to allow you to store, send or receive value in the form of digital assets with the value pegged to fiat.

How Does USDT Maintain a Stable Value?

Explaining the details of a stable coin in a short concise manner can get difficult, so please bear with us as we try to do it without going too far into the technical side of the token. Essentially, every USDT token released into circulation is backed 1:1 by $1 USD held by Tether. Sometimes during dramatic market moves, such as a sudden decline in Bitcoin price, large amounts of people often trade in or out of USDT which can cause the price of USDT to shift a little more dramatic than usual but it will typically return to its usual relatively stable equivalency to the US Dollar soon after.

While other cryptocurrencies may experience massive volatile shifts for extended periods, USDT typically will only spike for a short-term if heavy buying or selling occurs. It has been quite reliable since its inception and over several years has grown to be a very dominant pair alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum on many exchanges. You can typically expect to be able to spend or exchange USDT at almost any time without noticing much, if any difference, than you would if you were spending an equivalent amount of US Dollars.

Benefits of Having USDT on LocalCoinSwap?

The most obvious benefit is that you can become your own exchange and make money selling USDT in your area. All you need to do is set up a sell ad and if there’s no one else in your geographical area trading it, or maybe you are the cheapest option worldwide, then you can immediately start making money on the spread.

Another benefit is choice. Many true lovers of cryptocurrency like to handle as much of their finances outside of the old ways of traditional banking and fiat as possible and for people like this, having some or all of their funds in a low volatility token, such as USDT, can give them this option without having to always watch the markets. Many people living this type of lifestyle are strong proponents of decentralization and, in turn, are drawn to peer-to-peer exchanges, many of which until now didn’t have USDT listed giving them little to no stable options. Listing USDT on the LocalCoinSwap P2P exchange is a huge benefit for those users who simply don’t want to deal with large monopolies in the non-crypto world. If you don’t like the idea of a single monopoly in the world of fiat, why would you want to just start dealing with large monopolistic centralized exchanges in the world of crypto either?

One way LocalCoinSwap can especially benefit the crypto community is for anyone using exchanges that don't have fiat withdrawals but still want to trade crypto out of the market. You can now send your USDT to LocalCoinSwap and choose to trade that USDT for cash, PayPal, bank deposits or any of our other 34 payment methods. You can also make your own listings to buy USDT or sell USDT P2P using LocalCoinSwap with whatever terms, price and payment type suits you if you can’t find a listing suitable for your needs already.
You can do the reverse too in case a service or centralized exchange you like to use doesn't have fiat deposits but accepts USDT deposits, you can solve that issue and use LocalCoinSwap to get the USDT you want and then use it how you see fit.

Where Can I Find Out More About Tether?

You can keep up to date with Tether news and announcements by following them on Facebook and on their Twitter account where they have over 30,000 followers. Another handy resource for USDT information is Tether’s official website which contains everything from the whitepaper to transparency documents and much more in-depth information if you are interested in learning more about the stable coin.

At LocalCoinSwap, we value choice, and we believe more cryptocurrency listings empowers our community to trade how they choose. So we do our best to ensure we include cryptocurrencies that will appeal to everyone, no matter where you are in the world or whatever your needs are.

What are your thoughts on stable coins? Do you own USDT? What is the future of cryptocurrency and stable coins? As always,it would be great to hear from you on what interesting situations or products you have used USDT for.  

Be the first to start P2P trading with USDT on LocalCoinSwap? It only takes a few minutes to set up your buy or sell ads and you could start making money with us today!