{"id":97247,"date":"2026-05-20T10:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T07:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=97247"},"modified":"2026-05-20T10:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T07:10:13","slug":"expert-warns-of-liquidity-crisis-risk-for-tether-and-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/expert-warns-of-liquidity-crisis-risk-for-tether-and-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert Warns of Liquidity Crisis Risk for Tether and Circle"},"content":{"rendered":"

The presence of U.S. Treasury bills in their portfolios does not shield Tether and Circle from a sudden liquidity crisis. This was stated by Christoph Hock, head of tokenization and digital assets at Union Investment, at the Digital Money Summit 2026, according to CoinDesk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to him, USDT<\/a> and USDC<\/a> do not appear to be full-fledged fiat money equivalents for transactions. Hock believes that the reserve structure of the largest issuers resembles a speculative fund more than a conservative monetary instrument. In the case of Tether, he specifically pointed out investments in gold and Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

The expert estimates that such a model transfers market risk to token holders and makes “stablecoins” vulnerable in stressful situations when many investors simultaneously need liquidity.<\/p>\n

As an example, Hock recalled episodes of USDC’s decoupling from the dollar. In March 2024, the token momentarily dropped<\/a> to $0.74, and in 2023 it lost<\/a> about 13%, falling to $0.87.<\/p>\n

The expert described such a drop as unacceptable for corporate treasuries and asset managers using these instruments as quasi-cash for short-term settlements.<\/p>\n

Tether’s reserve structure also drew criticism. As of January 2026, the firm accumulated<\/a> 148 tons of gold worth $23 billion, ranking among the 30 largest holders of the precious metal.<\/p>\n

According to Hock, such asset choices expose corporate treasuries to market volatility, turning the stablecoin into a “hidden hedge fund.”<\/p>\n

In May, Tether published<\/a> its financial report for the first quarter, with a net profit of $1.04 billion.<\/p>\n

In the same month, Circle announced<\/a> the launch of the ARC token. During the presale, the firm raised $222 million from a group of investors, including a16z crypto, BlackRock, and Apollo Funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The presence of U.S. Treasury bills in their portfolios does not shield Tether and Circle from a sudden liquidity crisis, stated Christoph Hock, head of tokenization and digital assets at Union Investment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"Tether and Circle face liquidity crisis risks despite holding U.S. Treasury bills.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1138,807,1245,910],"class_list":["post-97247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-opinions","tag-stablecoins","tag-tether-usdt","tag-usdc"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"6","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"Tether and Circle face liquidity crisis risks despite holding U.S. Treasury bills.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97249,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97247\/revisions\/97249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}