After announcing its plans to start offering TrueUSD (TUSD) trading on Friday, May 18th, at 4:00 am (UTC), Binance has postponed the launch of the USD-pegged stablecoin.
Delayed on the Launchpad
Binance will no longer be launching TrueUSD (TUSD) trading on Friday, May 18th, at 4:00 am (UTC), as was originally planned. Instead, the hugely popular cryptocurrency exchange will start offering TUSD trading on May 22nd, at 4:00 am (UTC).
The change apparently comes after an evaluation of the coin’s interest in the community brought forth concerns over having sufficient liquidity. Notes Binance in an official announcement:
Due to popular demand, the TrueUSD (TUSD) project team requires more time than originally planned to prepare for sufficient liquidity. Binance will therefore postpone the trading start date to 2018/05/22 04:00 AM (UTC). Deposits for TUSD will remain open during this period. Thank you for your understanding.
What is TrueUSD?
As Bitcoinist previously reported, TrueUSD is a stablecoin designed to match the US dollar’s valuation at a one-to-one ratio, meaning one TUSD roughly equates to one USD — at least in terms of value. Therefore, it is not entirely dissimilar to the sometimes controversial stablecoin, Tether (USDT).
Unlike Tether (USDT), however, TrueUSD is reportedly much more regulatory compliant. Explained Binance:
In the TrueUSD system, U.S Dollars are held in the bank accounts of multiple trust companies that have signed escrow agreements, rather than in a bank account controlled by a single company. The contents of said bank accounts are published every day and are subject to monthly audits.
As such, actually getting ahold of TrueUSD through methods other than trading on Binance isn’t particularly easy. Notes Binance:
If someone wants to obtain TrueUSD through the online application, they will need to pass a KYC/AML check. Once that’s complete, they can send USD to one of TrueUSD’s trust company partners. Once the funds are verified by the trust company, their API will instruct the TrueUSD smart contract to issue tokens on a 1 to 1 ratio and to send them to the Ethereum address associated with the account at hand.
That said, once TrueUSD is in your wallet — say, by trading for it with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), or Binance Coin (BNB) on Binance — users are able to transfer it to other users, use it as payment, tether their cryptocurrency holdings to it in times of volatility, etc. If you have verified a wallet with one of TrueUSD’s trust company partners, TrueUSD holders may even redeem the digital currency for actual US dollars.
Yesterday, TrueUSD was trading at $1.30 per token. At the time of this writing, however, it has stabilized back down to $1.01 per TUSD.
What do you think of TrueUSD and Binance’s delayed launch of the stablecoin? Will you tether your holdings to TUSD in times of volatility, or do you prefer Tether? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Binance and Shutterstock.