After a prolonged decline, Tether (USDT), the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, increased its circulating supply to levels it had demonstrated before the FTX/Alameda drama.
Tether (USDT) sees most aggressive market cap increase in months
Today, Feb. 14, 2023, the circulating supply of U.S. Dollar Tether (USDT) by Tether Limited spiked to a new local high. As of press time, it is estimated at $69.18 billion by Tether's Transparency Dashboard.
69B
— Paolo Ardoino 🍐 (@paoloardoino) February 14, 2023
Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether and cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, announced this mint with a celebratory tweet. As covered by U.Today previously, Tether accelerated USDT minting amid the scandal with its second largest competitor, Binance USD (BUSD).
Paxos Global, an issuer of BUSD, will stop releasing new stablecoins as the NYDFS ordered it to stop offering unregistered securities. All existing Binance USD (BUSD) will be supported at least until 2024.
USDT and USDC should be the top beneficiares of this painful ruling for Binance (BNB). For the first time in more than a year, USDT's market cap smashed through 50% of all stablecoins' capitalization. As such, Tether (USDT) is now larger than all of its competitors combined.
Fuel for next rally of Bitcoin (BTC)?
Also, it is worth noticing that Tether Limited reported profits for the first time ever on Feb. 9, 2023. In Q4, 2022, it made more than $700 million, as U.Today covered.
Typically, the largest stablecoins increasing their market caps is used as the earliest signal of a Bitcoin (BTC) price upsurge. In his recent analysis, researcher Charles Edwards called stablecoins "dry powder" for the next Bitcoin (BTC) run.
Last December, he stressed that Bitcoin (BTC) sellers did not withdraw their liquidity from crypto markets; they just "parked" it in major stablecoins.
Arman Shirinyan
Alex Dovbnya
