Poloniex Adds Support for USDT
According to an announcement on April 19, the United States based major cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex has added support for USDT, Tether’s stablecoin, that has just been launched on the TRX (Tron) Blockchain. Now, the exchange will have support for the stablecoin on both chains – the original OMNI protocol, as well as the new Tron network.
Expanded Flexibility
The cryptocurrency exchange has added support for withdrawals as well as deposits for USDT on the just-launched Tron Blockchain. In the announcement, Poloniex explained that it had extended this support as it expanded the flexibility it could provide for the USDT platform.
Poloniex also stated that to support both chains, it was going to convert a certain percentage of the USDT stablecoins on the OMNI protocol to Tether on the new Tron network.
This means that while the markets for the two chains are the same, the wallet addresses for both the types of USDT are separate. Added to that, the stablecoins on each of the chains cannot be interchanged. Poloniex also added that even though it was adding support for the stablecoin on the TRX network, it would not have an impact on the USDT markets.
The company also stated that it was planning an airdrop for eligible users who already own Tether later in the month from a $20 million incentive pool.
However, the exchange stated that the amount of Tether that was going to be airdropped would be dependent on how much was converted to the new Blockchain. Added to that, once the airdrop began, customers would be credited the new Tether on Tron depending on the amount of Tether they already held.
Partnership Between Tron and Tether
In the new partnership with Tether, the two companies are essentially launching a TRC20-based version of the stablecoin so that transactions can be much faster as well as being free.
The Tron blockchain had originally been created using the Ethereum network, before it broke away to create its own independent Blockchain as a competitor to Ethereum.
The TRC20 token is the standard coin that can be issued on Tron’s Blockchain. The network offers two different ways in which tokens can be issued – the TRC10 and the TRC 20. Choosing one is dependent on the use case for the coin.
Tether had begun issuing USDT on the TRX network from April 17 this month. With this new upgrade, users will now be able to not just hold but also transfer their funds via smart contracts on the TRX Blockchain.