The tokens were presented as backed one-to-one by U.S. dollars. Realcoin was renamed Tether and entered private beta on November 20, 2014. Traders gained a way to hold dollar exposure on exchanges that had no banking relationships, which is much of why offshore crypto markets could function at all. The composition and sufficiency of its reserves were disputed for years and drew regulatory settlements in 2021.
All events
Tether issues a dollar-denominated token
Realcoin, later renamed Tether, issued its first dollar-denominated tokens on Bitcoin through the Mastercoin protocol, now known as Omni Layer.