Tether Says Customers Can Once Again Deposit and Redeem Fiat

"This update allows the immediate withdrawal of Tether to fiat, with the ability to acquire coming soon."

Tether's white paper says that token holders are able to redeem their USDT directly for dollars, which the white paper says the company holds in bank accounts at a one-to-one ratio with outstanding USDT tokens.

Questions about Tether's access to stable banking partners - and the lack of a full audit, which the company had promised - have caused an erosion of confidence in the the token's fiat backing, leading the exchange rate to break dramatically with the dollar at one point in mid-October.

Tether is now banking with the Bahamas-based Deltec, which the company noted in Tuesday's announcement.

While transactions from the Tether website were halted following the November 2017 breach, the company encouraged buyers "To use the services of any one of a dozen global exchanges to acquire or dispose of Tethers for either USD or other cryptocurrencies."

Since that time, customers have been able to deposit USDT to the Bitfinex exchange - which has overlapping shareholders and management with Tether Ltd. - and withdraw fiat, although many customers have complained that they waited weeks for their money to arrive.

Following persistent complaints from customers regarding delayed withdrawals, Bitfinex announced new fees for large or frequent fiat withdrawals.

In Tuesday's announcement, Tether said that withdrawals and deposits would be subject to minimums of $100,000 and 100,000 USDT, respectively.

Customers can only withdraw fiat once per week, and higher fees will be charged for those withdrawal more than once per month.

Bitfinex also made an announcement related to tether on Tuesday, saying that customers would be able to trade USDT directly for dollars through a trading pair.