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Tether (USDT) transactions on the Tron network have outpaced the number of USDT transfers on the Ethereum blockchain. Despite a lot more ERC20-based USDT in the wild, USDT transaction counts using the TRC20 standard have been much higher all year long, likely due to rising ETH network fees. Fees on the Tron network are near zero, whereas ETH transaction fees can exceed $5 range. However, the aggregated dollar volumes of ERC20 USDT is still 2x higher than those using TRC20. USDT is also issued on Ethereum, Tron, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Liquid, Solana, and Algorand, among others.

Most USDT is used on centralized exchanges for arbitrage - profiting from price differences across exchanges. The way this is done in practice is that arbitrageurs first send USDT to their own wallet before sending to a different exchange. This is done to gain more control over and achieve lower transaction fees on USDT transfers between exchanges. Most of this activity takes place between Huobi, Binance, and Bitfinex. The data also highlights the flow of USDT from issuance to end use. All new USDT is first minted, then sent to Bitfinex, who controls the keys to the printer, before being transferred to other exchanges. In USDT's entire existence on Ethereum Tether has never burned any supply. According to Flipside Crypto, USDT is by far the most dominant medium of exchange on Ethereum. There's is over 7 billion USDT on Ethereum, yet only ~2 billion are considered active.

"The CEO of crypto lending platform Celsius Network has said that Tether lends out new USDT stablecoins in return for cryptocurrencies - a claim that calls further into question Tether's founding promise that it uses only real dollars to issue its tokens. Celsius borrows USDT from Tether in return for well-known cryptocurrencies. New USDT is issued for such loans and later destroyed when the loan is closed so it does not permanently increase USDT in circulation. This flies in the face of the Tether operating model described in its whitepaper - issuance of USDT is supposed to be on a one-for-one basis against dollars. However a primer published in May 2021 says only that that 'newly issued [USDT] must be backed by collateral' and that 'redeemed [USDT] tokens are not released back into circulation unless new collateral has been provided'."

"USDTs look like real money to users because exchanges and arbitrageurs maintain a peg to the dollar - the price of every cryptocurrency is the same for USD as for USDT. However, USDTs come with a very important caveat: their apparent value relies exclusively on trust and hope that this peg will hold. There are no guarantees that USDT will be worth anything tomorrow - which is a pretty sweet deal for exchanges who keep the balances of their clients in USDT, instead of USD. If Tether collapses, it's the users who will get shafted, not the exchanges."

Tether and Circle, the issuers of USDT and USDC, have both moved to allay fears that their US dollar-pegged stablecoins are directly exposed to the fallout from the FTX debacle. CTO Paolo Ardoino said that Tether has no exposure to FTX or Alameda, although Alameda has previously redeemed a lot of USDT, but no credit exposure has matured. CEO Jeremy Allaire said that Circle has never made loans to FTX or Alameda, and has never received FTX's native token, FTT, as collateral, nor has it ever traded or held a position in FTT. Interestingly, both USDT and USDC became briefly unpegged today (November 10, 2022), with USDT spiking down, and Circle spiking up

The Tether Treasury moved 7m USDT from its vaults recently and minted 10m USDT just an hour after the money was moved out. Could this be a sign that the next bull run is on the corner? People often use USDT in order to trade BTC, so there is a correlation between USDT volumes and Bitcoin prices.

"Tether says in its terms of service that it only creates new stablecoin tokens, USDt, in acceptance for money. That is, to get $1 worth of USDt from Tether, you need to send it $1 in actual U.S. dollars. But in reality, Tether does not seem to be waiting for deposits to roll in before issuing new USDt. As the FT's Kadhim Shubber reports, it is directly lending new USDt out, much like how a bank puts new dollar IOUs into circulation by lending them out."

A study of USDT turnover reveals just how crazy the demand for Tether's stablecoin is. According to Coinmetric's tweet on January 31, they reported that every single USDT token changes hands roughly 46 times every year. The trend of increasing activity shows that Tether is instrumental to liquidity flows between exchanges. It's most likely that USDT changes hands most between multiple exchanges as opposed to individual traders.

"Starting Today Thursday April 22, transfer USDT into your Coinbase Pro account ahead of trading. Support for USDT will generally be available in Coinbase's supported jurisdictions, with the exception of New York State. Trading will begin on or after 6PM Pacific Time (PT) Monday April 26, if liquidity conditions are met. Please note that Coinbase only supports ERC-20 USDT running on the Ethereum blockchain. "

Significant market volatility this week induced by the collapse of the FTX exchange has impacted stablecoins with many of them depegging temporarily. Tether's USDT temporarily declined to $0.97 on November 10 as redemptions reportedly surpassed $600 million over the previous two days. Circle's USDC fell to $0.977 very briefly. Both rapidly regained their pegs. Yesterday I reported that USDT had spiked down and USDC spiked up, but different sources tell different stories. Yesterday's USDC graphic sourced CoinMarketCap.com whereas CoinGecko.com tells a different story (see below). with USDC also spiking down like USDT did. In any case, lots of volatility!

Tether has started issuing its stablecoin USDT on the Tron (TRX) blockchain, an upgrade from the OMNI protocol-based USDT.

In August, BTC/USDT represented 71.23% of total volume traded into both fiat and stablecoin. Despite controversies, USDT continues to be the most popular stablecoin for Bitcoin trading, followed by USDC, PAX, and TUSD. Bitmax, a trans-fee mining exchange, constituted roughly half of all USDT trading volume across all exchanges. Unlike regular cryptocurrency exchanges, trans-fee mining exchanges refund the fees paid by traders in the form of the exchange's native token. While popular with traders, these exchanges have faced criticism from industry experts and were often compared to Ponzi schemes. These exchanges also incentivize wash trading.

Tether Treasury has been on a printing spree in the past two days, injecting some 180M USDT into the market in three separate batches of 60M USDT each.

"Coinbase... [will be] listing tether (USDT), the world's dodgiest stablecoin. Tethers... are a stand-in for real dollars, used mainly on offshore crypto exchanges that can't get proper banking... Coinbase only supports ERC-20 USDT, a reference to the nearly 24 billion tethers that live on the Ethereum blockchain. (Another 26 billion are on Tron, with a smattering on Omni, Algorand, EOS, Liquid, SLP, and Solana.) At the moment, you can only transfer USDT onto Coinbase; you cannot move tethers off the exchange."

According to Tether's General Counsel, Stuart Hoegner, the commercial paper held as USDT reserves are mostly investment grade, but with no independent verification of his statement. However, Tether's terms of service says that if Tether is unable to raise the cash to meet USDT redemption requests, it can either delay redemption or redeem USDT by in-kind redemptions of securities and other assets held as reserves. So the liquidity or quality of reserve assets doesn't matter since Tether will never have any significant need for cash.

Tether once backed its USDT stablecoin with commercial paper issued by Chinese firms, according to documents released by New York's Attorney General (NYAG). However, Tether says that all of those securities were rated A2 or better, for what that's worth. The NYAG released the documents in response to a freedom of information request from Bloomberg News, following an earlier unsuccessful request by CoinDesk. [The whole Bloomberg article is worth a read, as it details a number of other questionable USDT reserves management practices.]

Tether has resumed providing new loans denominated in USDT to clients, a move that comes nearly a year after the company had announced its intention to discontinue offering collateralized loans in 2023. As of June 30, 2023, the latest quarterly attestation showed assets that included $5.5 billion in loans, up from $5.3 billion in the previous quarter. A Tether spokesperson said the company's aim is to prevent any significant depletion of its customers' liquidity or the need for them to sell their collateral at potentially unfavorable prices, which could result in firesale losses. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-09-21/tether-keeps-lending-tethers

S&P Global unveiled ratings for eight stablecoins. On a grading scale of one (very strong) to five (very weak) USDC, Pax Dollar (USDP) and Gemini Dollar (GUSD) scored all scored two strong), while Tether's USDT scored a four (constrained). USDT was penalized for its lack of transparency and for holding some higher risk assets. The ratings are based on an assessment of asset quality risks, including credit, market value, and custody risks, the degree of any risk mitigants like overcollateralization requirements and liquidation mechanisms, governance, legal and regulatory framework, redeemability and liquidity, technology and third-party dependencies, and track record.

Tether said in a new USDT attestation report that it made a $700 million net profit in Q4 2022. The company says it has added the money to its USDT reserves. Tether said its latest quarterly results were buoyed by interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve, which have resulted in higher yields on government debt. Tether makes money from various fees, including a $1,000 withdrawal fee (with a minimum withdrawal requirement of $100,000), as well as investments in digital tokens and precious metals as well as issuing loans to other institutions. https://assets.ctfassets.net/vyse88cgwfbl/53L8YRM4ZHCEeqlpKbc3Q8/846eb5a7f53a47d53676ee3fbb1b3062/Std_ISAE_3000R_Opinion_BDO_31-12-2022_Tether_CRR.pdf

"In principle Tether has a very good and easy business, but in practice it is weirdly difficult, and issuing USDT in exchange for Bitcoin collateral might in fact be easier and safer than issuing USDT in exchange for dollars in the bank. To get dollars in the bank, you need a bank."