Tether is a stablecoin pegged to the US Dollar. A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to another fiat currency like the US Dollar or to a commodity like Gold.
Tether is the first stablecoin to be created and it is the most popular stablecoin used in the ecosystem. It has the largest stablecoins by circulation and market capitalization.
Tether is controlled by Tether Holding Limited or known as Tether Limited. The CEO is JL Van Der Velde, the CFO is Giancarlo Devasini and the general counsel is Suart Hoegner.
Tether was launched by the team running Bitfinex, a major cryptocurrency exchange.
Tether was originally based on the Omni Layer, a transport protocol on the Bitcoin blockchain. Therefore, the original version of Tether is characterized by the inherent stability and security of the longest established blockchain network.
To accelerate adoption, in September 2017, Tether was launched on the Ethereum blockchain, as an ERC20 token. Tether’s Ethereum ERC-20 is now the most popular Tether token type.
Tether is now available on Ethereum, Tron, EOS, Liquid, and Algorand. You can see the full breakdown on Tether’s Transparency page.