Tether (USDT) stablecoin surpasses $50 billion in circulation
Tether (USDT) stablecoin surpasses $50 billion in circulation
Tether, the leading stablecoin, surpassed $50 billion in circulation for the first time today. This latest development means that Tether’s holdings are higher than the sum of all but 44 of the thousands of banks in the United States.
According to a Bloomberg report, Tether’s growth has been remarkable, considering it is a token used as a payment method in the cryptocurrency space. The stablecoin issuer is slated to release its first quarter (Q1) statement on its reserves to the New York Attorney General before the end of the month.
Tether is expected to provide a quarterly statement to the New York Attorney General following previous allegations that the stablecoins are not fully backed by fiat currencies. The stablecoin issuer was cleared last month by an external auditor who revealed that the USDT tokens are fully backed by an equivalent amount of fiat currencies.
Nic Carter, the co-founder of researcher Coin Metrics, told Bloomberg that “At those offshore exchanges, Tether is the main collateral and margin type. Exchange volumes are way up, and Binance volume is way up. For traders to get access to these crypto-only exchanges, they often prefer a stablecoin like Tether. You can think of the supply of Tether as a transparent proxy for the balance sheet of both the crypto-only exchanges as well as the funds trading crypto on those exchanges.”
Tether continues to gain adoption
Tether has been growing over the past few years despite the numerous allegations against it. USDT maintained its position as the leading stablecoin in the world, and it is also the fifth-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap.
Last month, Coinbase announced that it would be listing Tether on its Coinbase Pro platform. USDT is available on several cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance. However, Coinbase had opted to use others. The US-based exchange announced the addition of Tether to its platform a few weeks after an external auditing firm cleared the stablecoin issuer.
