A backlash is going on against Tether, the cryptocurrency which is showing signs of Ripple-like inflation. Some Reddit users are advising a boycott of the USDT coin, because of its unique set-up. The digital currency, released in 2015, claims to be pegged to the US Dollar, at an equivalent price of $1=1USDT. The US Treasury, however, have not officially endorsed any such product, and any such government-backed currency would come from the Federal Reserve rather than a private company.

Concerns have been substantially increased in the third week of January due to an escalation of the amount of USDT in circulation, currently about 2 billion. There is no evidence of where the financial assets are to back up these tokens, and many regard it as suspicious that more tokens seem to be released in times of market uncertainty, sometimes as many as ten million a day. Last year, Tether had insufficient reserves to redeem USDT trades, and had to use a third party exchange, with transaction fees that eventuated in a $0.07 loss on every dollar.

Tether recently announced that the tokens exist also on the Ethereum blockchain, which may have prompted the escalation in user interest, and consequent price spike.