USDT’s utility on Ethereum is at an all-time high. Various key metrics have increased by 400% in the past two years.
Token Terminal shared some of the metrics on X. USDT achieved a monthly transfer volume of $580.9 billion on the Ethererun chain. The total transfer count is 12.5 million. Or in other words, traders have exchanged USD on Ethereum 12.5 million times.
Ethereum proved once again that it’s the master chain for DeFi activities. As the biggest stablecoin in the crypto market, USDT powers DeFi transactions and caters to whales and institutions.
USDT dominates stablecoins on Ethereum
USDT has a market cap of $180.64 billion based on data from DeFiLlama. The total amount of USDT coins circulating at the moment is $180.122 billion, while the unreleased amount of coins is $6.825 billion. Ethereum has 44.46% of total USDT coins circulating in all blockchains. This amounts to 80.081 billion USDT coins available on-chain right now.
Tron ranks second with 77.322 billion USDT. Binance Smart Chain (BSC) follows in third place with 8.982 billion USDT, far behind the top two networks. Plasma (XPL) ranks fourth with 5.02 billion, and Solana takes fifth place with 2.335 billion USDT in circulation.
Tether has minted $1 billion USDT coins on Ethereum, less than 24 hours ago. Injecting fresh liquidity of stablecoins in the crypto market usually indicates preparation for upcoming demand, which simply means more buying orders.
Tether survives the last market crash
Tether stayed resilient during Friday’s market crash. Unlike other coins that lost their peg, Tether’s USDT remained stable and ready to serve traders on both DEXs and CEXs, absorbing massive market liquidations. Cryptopolitan reported earlier that Ethena’s synthetic dollar, USDe, had depegged on Binance, falling to $0.66.
Paolo Ardoino, founder of Tether, took to X and wrote about the recent market crash. He said, “USDT is the best collateral for derivatives and margin trading.” Ardoino also took a jab at poor liquidity, saying, “If you use as collateral low liquidity tokens, some bananas, a horse, 3 olives and a chewed bubblegum, then brace yourself when market moves.”
Tether’s USDT is backed by US dollars, US treasury notes, and other reserve assets such as Bitcoin, gold, and secured loans. The versatility in its backing gives USDT an advantage over other stablecoins. Ardoino revealed earlier that Tether uses part of its revenue to purchase Bitcoin and gold. This strategy strengthens Tether’s reserves and diversifies its balance sheet.
Though users can transfer USDT without paying any fees, Tether still earns money in other ways. It collects fees for minting and redeeming USDT coins, receives payments from exchange partners, and charges small fees for using USDT on some blockchains, such as Tron.
Tether’s revenue comes from investing in reserves that back its stablecoin USDT. Last year, the company reported a profit of $13 billion. Tether profited $5.7 billion in the first half of this year.
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