2 min read
Tether’s USDT stablecoin just hit an all-time high in market capitalization, surpassing its previous peak level of $83.355 billion in May 2022, according to CoinGecko data.
Tether is currently the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization with a valuation of $83.6 billion, commanding 7.5% of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization.
USDT dominates the stablecoin market with a 64% share out of a total stablecoin market capitalization of $130.2 billion. The supply of the second largest stablecoin USDC is nearly three times smaller than USDT.
"As a consequence of the recent banking crisis in the US, users are transitioning from less secure and liquid stablecoins to Tether USDT," a Tether spokesperson told Decrypt. "Despite being in a crypto winter, there is an increasing number of users who are choosing to hold their positions on the sidelines, awaiting an opportunity to re-enter the market."
Circle’s USDC suffered major blows earlier this year after it revealed that it had $3.3 billion stuck with the defunct Silicon Valley Bank, causing it to briefly lose its peg for a few days.
CoinMetrics data shows a severe downturn in USDC's supply since March as its market capitalization declined from over $40 billion to $28.8 billion.
Tether Limited has issued the USDT token on 13 blockchains including Ethereum, Tron, Solana, Avalanche, and Omni chain among others.
CoinMetrics data shows that the lion’s share of the spike in USDT’s supply came from minting on Tron.
In May, USDT’s supply on Tron increased to $46.1 billion after surging $1 billion in the last month and $9 billion since the start of 2023. In comparison, USDT on Ethereum has increased modestly from $32.3 billion to $36.3 billion.
Analysts have suggested that market makers on centralized exchanges like Binane and OKX prefer Tron over Ethereum due to cheaper and faster transactions.
The Tether spokesperson added that Tron has also been popular in emerging markets and developing countries for the same reasons.
Tether’s supply currently represents 0.4% of the total US dollar’s M2 money supply, which represents the total amount of a currency’s fiat value in the market.
Decrypt-a-cookie
This website or its third-party tools use cookies. Cookie policy By clicking the accept button, you agree to the use of cookies.