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HOW TO BUY USDT AND AVOID THE HIGH VOLATILITY OF CRYPTO

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Understanding and breaking down all the different types of crypto can feel like a huge task—there are so many variations of each coin. To make things easier, we’re going to break down one main form of crypto, Tether. Tether has a lot of benefits, but there are also some important facts you should be aware of. This article will explain what you need to know about the popular stablecoin known as USDT.

 

What is Tether?

Tether is a stablecoin pegged to the US Dollar and it’s said to mirror the dollar with a 1:1 ratio. This means that 1 USDT is equal to 1 USD. Before we go down the Tether “rabbit hole,” we need to break down the definition of a stablecoin.

In the simplest terms, a stablecoin is a cryptocurrency that ties (or tethers) its market value to another currency or asset, such as gold, oil, or in this case, the US Dollar.

You can think of Tether as a cross between a cryptocurrency and a fiat currency. The reason stablecoins peg themselves to other commodities is to ensure price stability and to maintain their value. Tether and their owner, Tether Limited, run the currency through blockchain technology, yet they are stable like the dollar.

Another way to wrap your head around Tether is by thinking about balloons. Imagine a balloon is tethered to someone. While the balloon is free to float around, its limitations are based on the moving person. Now, imagine that the balloon is USDT and the person is the dollar. The person or dollar is stable, and it’s not moving very much. This means the balloon or USDT is also not moving around either. However, the balloon is still free to make some movements while being tied to the person.

 

Why is Tether Used?

USDT is often used to avoid price jumps and volatilities associated with crypto—we’ll touch on this. In fact, many crypto investors find that Tether is a good alternative to Bitcoin since it is less volatile, but it’s still considered a cryptocurrency. Other crypto traders use USDT because it’s easier and cheaper to transfer Bitcoin into Tether than the dollar. With USDT, there are also little to no transaction costs and fewer trade delays.

 

Advantages and disadvantages of Tether

Since USDT and stablecoins are unique forms of currency, it’s important to understand the advantages and disadvantages before buying them.

 

Advantages of Tether:

  • Borderless: Like with all cryptos, you can send and receive USDT anywhere. This crypto doesn’t follow any borders, making transactions seamless and quick compared to the dollar.
  • Stability: USDT is always trying to maintain its value to one dollar. This makes it less volatile and more stable than cryptocurrency.
  • Protection: Since USDT is a cryptocurrency yet is valued like a fiat currency, traders can easily convert their crypto balance into USDT and back again. Some traders convert to USDT to protect their non-stablecoin crypto against a high influx in prices. Then when the cost of crypto stabilizes, traders will convert their USDT back.
  • Liquidity: USDT is said to have a high rate of liquidity, unlike its fiat currency counterpart. However, it’s worth mentioning that there have been some transparency issues associated with Tether Limited and its reserves. Tether Limited is the company that created Tether, and they have yet to complete an audit at the time of writing. Furthermore, Tether is not held to the same supervisory standards as traditional banks are. The lack of transparency and supervision means that Tether’s liquidity and its ability to be issued could be questionable.

 

Disadvantages of Tether:

  • Anonymity: A known issue with USDT is its lack of anonymity. To issue or redeem USDT from Tether Limited, you must input your personal info, such as your banking info. This means the company will have access to your personal data. Alternatively, you can buy USDT from the exchange site. However, these exchanges often have a process called KYC (know your customer), where users must verify their identity to buy crypto.
  • Decentralized: Tether Limited owns and controls USDT. This means the coin is not decentralized, and it even depends on the company to function. This has been an issue for some crypto investors that prefer their crypto to be completely free of influence.
  • Transparency: Despite USDT being owned by one company, there has been a lack of clarity about how the company operates. Also, Tether Limited has yet to complete a full and public audit. Due to their lack of transparency, it’s hard to ensure that USDT maintains a 1:1 ratio with the dollar. Tether Limited also does not 100% guarantee that its crypto is the same value as the dollar.

Now that we’ve explained all the basics of Tether let’s go into how to buy it.

 

How to buy Tether

Buying USDT is easy to do on popular crypto exchanges, such as Paxful. Or you can buy it from Tether limited.

 

Here is the process to buy USDT from Tether Limited:

  1. Deposit the amount of money you’d like to spend in a Tether Limited bank account.
  2. Tether will generate and credit the specified amount of USDT to a user’s account.
  3. If you want to exchange your USDT for another currency, you can deposit your tokens into a Tether Limited account.
  4. Then, Tether Limited will destroy the tokens and will send you the converted currency.

Tether is growing fast. With plans to make a Japanese and British version of USDT, this coin is evolving rapidly. When exploring your crypto options keep in mind that the crypto world is always changing. It’s always a good idea to stay up-to-date with the latest news. Lastly, remember to do your research before making any final plans.

 

*The content of this article is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

 

Finance

Taxing times for online marketplaces? Operators must act now to avoid losing sellers

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By Niall Kiernan, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Vertex

 

In today’s digital landscape, online marketplaces are an enabler for many businesses to achieve their growth ambitions. From Amazon to eBay, Etsy to Vinted, businesses of all sizes are now utilising online marketplaces, and recent years has seen exponential growth in this area. Numerous factors, including the proliferation of mobile devices and widespread availability of high-speed internet, have resulted in this escalation. Combined with consumer demand for convenience, along with the impact of the pandemic, the success of online marketplaces can be seen in the numbers. In 2021, retail eCommerce sales amounted to approximately US$ 5.2 trillion worldwide. This figure is forecast to reach US$8.1 trillion dollars by 2026.

It is clear that online marketplaces are a vital source for businesses to continue to flourish but there are still major roadblocks which can hinder a business’ efforts to capitalise on the booming sector. According to research commissioned by Vertex, which surveyed 479 finance professionals globally, seven out of ten sellers using marketplaces to trade online believe that indirect tax challenges could deter them from using them again in the future.

The complexity of ensuring a frictionless eCommerce experience

Whilst over half of respondents in the survey agreed that marketplaces are getting easier to use as a sales channel, ensuring that both operators and sellers can enjoy a frictionless experience is one of the biggest challenges in the space. Respondents indicated that they are looking for more support and guidance on issues including: how to ensure transactions and the transfer of money can be more seamless (65%), tax liabilities (64%), and compliant invoicing (63%). But what are some of the specific roadblocks both marketplace operators and sellers are experiencing?

  1. The cross-border trade conundrum

85% of marketplace operators surveyed indicated that they are looking to increase their seller base, however there are numerous tax complications when trade crosses borders. Four out of seven operators stated they have struggled to manage tax liabilities and tax complexities around seller shipping locations. Online marketplaces are very much a global affair, with cross-border transactions being the norm.

The difficulty here is that both operators and sellers must comply with the different tax regimes of the countries they operate in, which can be a complex and burdensome process. Seller respondents reported a wide range of issues when they sell through marketplaces, including balancing their tax liabilities and knowing where and when they are liable for tax.

  1. Complexities in every step of a transaction

Dig beneath the surface and the process of a transaction is much more complex than initially meets the eye. From listing fees to shipping and handling charges, or the previously mentioned cross-border trade complexities, every step in the transaction process brings multiple challenges to both the operators and sellers themselves.

45% of sellers surveyed want their marketplace operators to improve the process of finance and tax automation to overcome these barriers, but of the operators, only 56% manage all tax liabilities on their seller’s behalf. If marketplace operators want to ensure they have a healthy population of sellers, this figure needs to increase.

Tax technology for a trouble-free tomorrow

Although there are clear and significant indirect tax challenges for online marketplaces, the space remains an attractive channel for businesses to achieve their growth ambitions. 81% of businesses are taking advantage of online marketplaces to attract new customers and sell into more countries and upon further inspection, they attribute this expansion into marketplaces to reach a wider geographical market (57%), to being more competitive (50%) and to tap into cross-border sales opportunities (48%). It’s clear that sellers are wanting to utilise online marketplaces to expand their customer base globally and if operators want to increase their seller base and take advantage of the growing demand for this, and 85% of those surveyed do, then they need to ensure that their platforms offer a seamless experience for their sellers.

By investing in an end to end tax management solution which can handle all types of indirect tax requirements, you will be able to support sellers on their own individual growth journeys. In addition, you can rest assured that it will also enable them to feel confident that their chosen platforms can meet all the indirect tax requirements as they increase their cross-border sales.

To learn more about the taxing times for the marketplace and seller relationship, download the latest report by Vertex.

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Business

Unlocking the Power of Data: Revolutionising Business Success in the Financial Services Sector

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Suki Dhuphar, Head of EMEA, Tamr

 

The financial services (FS) sector operates within an immensely data-abundant landscape. But it’s well-known that many organisations in the sector struggle to make data-driven decisions because they lack access to the right data to make decisions at the right time.

As the sector strives for a data-driven approach, companies focus on democratising data, granting non-technical users the ability to work with and leverage data for informed decision-making. However, dirty data, riddled with errors and inconsistencies, can lead to flawed analytics and decision-making. Siloed data across departments like Marketing, Sales, Operations, or R&D exacerbates this issue. Breaking down these barriers is essential for effective data democratisation and achieving accurate insights for decision-making.

An antidote to dirty, disconnected data

Overcoming the challenges presented by dirty, disconnected data is not a new problem. But, there are new solutions – such as shifting strategies to focus on data products – which are proven to deliver great results. But, what is a data product?

Data products are high-quality, accessible datasets that organisations use to solve business challenges. Data products are comprehensive, clean, and continuously updated. They make data tangible to serve specific purposes defined by consumers and provide value because they are easy to find and use. For example, an investment firm can benefit from data products to gain insights into market trends and attract more capital. These offer a scalable solution for connecting alternative data sources, providing accurate and continuously updated views of portfolio companies. Using machine learning (ML) based technology enables the data product to adapt to new data sources, giving a firm’s partners confidence in their investment decisions.

Suki Dhuphar

But, before companies can reap the benefits of data products, the development of a robust data product strategy is a must.

Where to begin?

Prior to embarking on a data product strategy, it is imperative to establish clear-cut objectives that align with your organisation’s overarching business goals. Taking an incremental approach enables you to make a real impact against a specific objective – such as streamlining operations to enhance cost efficiency or reshaping business portfolios to drive growth – by starting with a more manageable goal and then building upon it as the use case is proved. For companies that find themselves uncertain about where to begin their move to data products, tackling your customer data is a good place to start for some quick wins to increase the success of the customer experience programmes.

Getting a good grasp on data

Once an objective is in place, it’s time for an organisation to assess its capabilities for executing the data product strategy. To do this, you need to dig into the nitty-gritty details like where the data is, how accurate and complete it is, how often it gets updated, and how well it’s integrated across different departments. This will give a solid grasp of the actual quality of the data and help allocate resources more efficiently. At this stage, you should also think about which stakeholders from across the business from leadership to IT will need to be involved in the process and how.

Once that’s covered, you can start putting together a skilled team and assigning responsibilities to kick-off the creation and management of a comprehensive data platform that spans all relevant departments. This process also helps spot any gaps early on, so you can focus on targeted initiatives.

Identifying the problem you will solve

Now let’s move on to the next step in our data product strategy. Here we need to identify a specific problem or challenge that is commonly faced in your organisation. It’s likely that leaders in different departments, like R&D or procurement, encounter obstacles that hinder their objectives that could be overcome with better insight and information. By defining a clear use case, you will build a real solution to a challenge they are facing rather than a data product for the sake of having data. This will be an impactful case study for your entire organisation to understand the potential benefits of data products and increase appetite for future projects.

Getting buy-in from the business

Once you have identified the problem you want to solve, you need to secure the funding, support, and resources to move the project ahead. To do that, you must present a practical roadmap that shows how you will quickly deliver value. You should also showcase how to improve it over time once the initial use case is proven.

The plan should map how you will measure success effectively with specific indicators (such as KPIs) that are closely tied to business goals. These indicators will give you a benchmark of what success looks like so you can clearly show when you’ve delivered it.

Getting the most out of your data product

Once you’ve got the green light – and the funds – it’s time to put your plan into action by creating a basic version of your data product, also known as a minimum viable data product (MVDP). By starting small and gradually enhancing with each new release you are putting yourself in the best stead to encourage adoption and also (coming back to our iterative approach) help you secure more resources and funding down the line.

To make the most of your data product, it’s essential to tap into the knowledge and experience of business partners as they know how to make the most of the data product and integrate it into existing workflows. Additionally, collecting feedback and using it to improve future releases will bring even more value to end users in the business and, in turn, your customers.

Unlocking the power of data (products)

It’s crucial for companies in FS to make the most of the huge amount of data they have at their disposal. It simply doesn’t make sense to leave this data tapped and not use it to solve real challenges for end users in the business and, in turn, improve the customer experience! By adopting effective strategies for data products, FS organisations can start to maximise the incredible value of their data.

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