World's Largest Crypto Exchange Binance Looking to Add New Stablecoins

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by adjusted volume, is actively looking to list more stablecoins in addition to the three it already supports, which include the recently beleaguered tether.

"We hope to be able to list a few more stablecoins on our platform," chief financial officer Wei Zhou told CoinDesk Thursday.

Binance's interest in expanding its stablecoin options predates tether's breaking of the buck.

The exchange added support for Paxos Standard in late September, weeks before USDT lost parity, and TrueUSD back in May. Currently, Wei said the Binance research team is evaluating almost all the other stablecoins on the market, with a keen eye on potentially adding the Gemini Dollar backed by the Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

All of these newer stablecoins also broke their one-to-one fiat peg this week during the frenzy, though unlike USDT, they rose above $1 rather than falling below it.

To be sure, Binance still sees USDT as a linchpin of the crypto markets.

Lately many investors have been pulling out rather than parking assets in USDT, and Binance briefly suspended withdrawals of the stablecoin earlier this week when price fluctuations followed a trading spike.

Wei said the oscillation was sparked by "Rumors being spread untruthfully" about Tether, the company that issues USDT and has close ties to crypto exchange Bitfinex, although he added that "From our perspective, we believe the market is always right."

Some are skeptical about the prospects for the newer, regulator-oriented stablecoins to take up some or all of tether's slack.

Nic Carter, a co-founder of Coinmetrics.io and partner at Castle Island Ventures, argued that stablecoins are currently used by traders who lack fiat on-ramps for regulatory arbitrage or want to avoid capital controls.