• Tether has minted an additional $1 billion in USDT on the Tron blockchain, bringing its total USDT issuance to over $33 billion in the past year, with the majority minted on the Tron network.
• The recent surge in Tether’s USDT issuance, particularly during Bitcoin’s correction, has been linked to market rebounds.

Stablecoin issuer Tether minted an additional $1 billion in USDT tokens on the Tron blockchain network and sent them to the Treasury wallet. This brings Tether’s total USDT minted to more than $33 billion over the last year.

According to the on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain, most of these tokens, approximately 19 billion USDT, were minted on the Tron network. On the other hand, Tether issued another 14 billion USDT on the Ethereum blockchain.

Before minting on the Tron network, Tether also minted 1 billion USDT on the Ethereum network in August, as per the data monitoring platform Whale Alert. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino also clarified on X that the $1 billion transaction on Ethereum was merely a “USDT inventory replenish.” He further explained that the transaction was authorized but not yet issued. This means Tether would hold the USDT as inventory to fulfill future issuance requests and facilitate chain swaps.

Popular crypto analyst Ali Martinez compared Tether to the Federal Reserve, highlighting a strong correlation between the minting of new USDT and the market upswing. Martinez also suggested that the issuance has shot up during the recent Bitcoin correction, thereby providing fresh liquidity and fueling the market rebound currently. In the last 24 hours, the Bitcoin price has jumped by another 4.5%, shooting past $61,000 levels.

Market Players Cheer Tether’s USDT Issuance

On-chain tracker Arkham Intelligence went “wow” on the latest $1 billion USDT addition to Tether’s treasury. They spotlighted the major feat of Tether accomplishing large-scale minting at zero gas fee.

Stablecoin issuer Tether has been on a USDT issuance spree recently. On August 19, Tether announced its intention to extend USDT support to the Aptos blockchain. This decision follows notable growth within the Aptos ecosystem, with average daily active users rising from 96,000 in January to 170,000 by July, reported Crypto News Flash. 

Adding the stablecoin to Aptos will utilize the blockchain’s cutting-edge infrastructure, offering unmatched speed and scalability. Additionally, the integration will benefit from very low gas fees, greatly lowering transaction costs. Moreover, the coin issuer reported a robust profit of $5.2 billion cumulatively for the first half of FY24, per the CNF report.

Going ahead, Tether will likely face increased competition as Ripple has announced the launch of its USD-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD. The RLUSD will likely launch later this year, fuelling concerns around USDT dominance, reported Crypto News Flash.