It seems that Bitfinex is about to launch an IEO to raise $1 billion in Tether dollars (USDT).
The indiscretion emerged via Twitter. The user Zirui published the screenshot of a message posted on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter, presumably by the Bitfinex investor Zhao Dong, already known for having revealed other similar indiscretions in the past.
According to the screenshot of the Chinese post, “Bitfinex is going to do an IEO, and some big whales already reserved $300m of the allocations in #USDT”.
An IEO, or Initial Exchange Offering, is a token sale that involves placing a token directly on the market on one or more exchanges, with no need to have an ICO with a smart contract.
As Bitfinex is an exchange, the IEO would be rather simple to launch, so the hypothesis suggested by Zhao Dong appears at least plausible.
In the last few days, serious accusations have been made against Tether and Bitfinex, to the extent that a loss of 850 million dollars has been hypothesised. The IEO could be used to raise enough money to cover these shortfalls, although it should be remembered that the company then denied these losses.
The initiative was also mentioned on Twitter by the founding partner of Primitive Ventures Foundation Dovey Wan, and other users, but the original source is still Zhao Dong.
For now, there are no confirmations or denials from Bitfinex, but if the initiative is true, clarifying elements will surely emerge in the next few days, considering that in theory, the timing may be short.
The hypothesis that is circulating is that Bitfinex will issue its own token sold directly on the trading platform in exchange for USDT, in order to collect Tether dollars. To date, in fact, Bitfinex does not have a native token, unlike for example other exchanges, such as Binance, which already issued one in the past to finance their activities.
