The cryptocurrency sector was recently hit with a strong wave of corrections, just after the price of Bitcoin (BTC) hit a new 2-year high of $19,100. As the price started dropping, the correction took over the rest of the market, as well. Traders and investors rushed to buy Tether (USDT), which allowed the stablecoin to massively increase its market cap.
Tether market cap surges by $1b in 9 days
Tether’s (USDT) market cap surge started some time ago, and it may have even had a part to play in Bitcoin’s own rally.
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Bitfinex’s and Tether’s CTO, Paolo Ardoino, noted recently in a tweet that the USDT supply has gone up by 1 billion in less than ten days. This represents Tether’s second-largest supply expansion in the coin’s history.
Interestingly enough, the largest expansion also took place in 2020, less than three months ago. On September 4th of this year, USDT supply grew by 1 billion in around eight days, narrowly beating the current surge, which took place over nine days.
At the time of writing, the USDT market cap is nearly $19 billion. With each USDT coin having a price of $1, that means that there is currently around $19 billion in USDT alone.
USDT supply is four times larger than in January 2020
The coin saw a massive supply growth in 2020, as it currently holds nearly four times more money than it did at the start of the year. But, with the COVID-19 pandemic and the global economic meltdown that it caused, this is not really that surprising.
However, USDT’s market cap growth was still not enough to overcome XRP, which recently reclaimed its third spot from Tether.
The world’s largest stablecoin gets to keep its name even now, despite all the controversies, such as not being willing to allow audits that would confirm that it actually has the money to back all of its coins, or being accused of market manipulations in 2017 and years that followed.
