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Home/ Research/ Market Structure & Adoption/ Is Bitcoin Really Untethered?

Journal article · 2020 Top-tier journal

Is Bitcoin Really Untethered?

John M. Griffin, Amin Shams · The Journal of Finance, Vol. 75(4) · Wiley

A high-profile empirical study associating Tether (USDT) issuance with support of Bitcoin prices during the 2017 run-up.

Read the source doi:10.1111/jofi.12903 unverified

Relevance to stablecoin measurement

Historical grounding for our reserve-transparency and market-structure coverage; pair with issuer/company data.

Key findings

Quotable

Evidence consistent with Tether issuance supporting Bitcoin prices in 2017 (Griffin & Shams, 2020, Journal of Finance).

Method and limits

Research question Was Tether issuance used to support or manipulate cryptocurrency prices?
Methodology Empirical analysis of blockchain flows and price movements (2017 sample)
Data and sample On-chain Tether flows and Bitcoin/crypto prices, 2017
Limitations Focused on a single 2017 episode; associational evidence, contested by the issuer.

Indexed under

Market Structure & AdoptionPeg Stability & RunsTetherUSDTreserve backingmarket manipulationJEL G12JEL G14

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Cite this

John M. Griffin, Amin Shams (2020). Is Bitcoin Really Untethered? The Journal of Finance, Vol. 75(4).

BibTeX
@article{griffin2020isbitcoinuntethered,
  title = {Is Bitcoin Really Untethered?},
  author = {John M. Griffin and Amin Shams},
  year = {2020},
  institution = {Wiley},
  journal = {The Journal of Finance, Vol. 75(4)},
  doi = {10.1111/jofi.12903},
  url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jofi.12903},
  note = {Indexed by Stablecoin Beat},
}

Last verified 2026-07-02. 1 of the 19 fields shown is recorded but not yet verified and is marked below; 1 further tracked field is not recorded.

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