Stablecoins are a market that is currently dominated by Tether (USDT), but there are also a number of contenders such as True USD (TUSD), Dai (DAI), and the upcoming USDC (USD Coin), which is being developed by Circle.

The Stellar platform now also has a stablecoin in the form of Stronghold USD. The token, as the name suggests, is developed by fintech startup Stronghold. Pegged to the U.S. dollar, Stronghold USD is backed by FDIC-insured USD reserves with custody provided by PrimeTrust.

Although they don’t state it explicitly, a press release issued by Stronghold makes it pretty clear that they are taking aim at Tether, which has been surrounded by controversy for a very long time.

“The intent of issuing a token, like Stronghold USD, is to strengthen confidence in the practical application of stable coins for routine transactions by addressing the challenges associated with previous attempts at fiat-backed coins, where limited transparency into the underlying reserves guaranteeing the coin’s value prevented broad adoption.”

Tether is being used by the vast majority of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges (USDT has seen $3.48 billion trading volume in the last 24 hours), so displacing it will be anything but easy.

Since Stronghold is now serving as an USD anchor on Stellar, USD can now be directly exchanged for XLM tokens on the platform. Tech giant IBM, well-known for its partnership with Stellar, is also interested in Stronghold USD, and will begin conducting tests with the token.

The XLM token has been rallying recently, fueled by a string of positive news and Coinbase saying it's one of the tokens that could be added to their platform in the future. On July 13, XLM was trading at $0.18 - now, one XLM will set you back $0.29.