“There are 3 eras of currency: Commodity based, politically based, and now, math based.”– Chris Dixon (Co-founder of Hunch now owned by Ebay, Co-founder of SiteAdvisor now owned by McAfee)
Tether is a cryptocurrency that is hosted on the Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchains. The precursor to Tether, originally named "Realcoin", was announced in July 2014 by co-founders Brock Pierce, Reeve Collins, and Craig Sellars as a Santa Monica based startup. Its tokens are issued by the Hong Kong company Tether Limited, which in turn is controlled by the owners of Bitfinex. Tether is called a stablecoin because it was originally designed to always be worth US$1.00, maintaining $1.00 in reserves for each tether issued.