Tether (USDT) reached a market capitalization of over USD 10 billion as of July 22.
The milestone was announced by Tether and also seen through the market price aggregator, CoinGecko.
Tether’s issuance has experienced significant growth in 2020, doubling from USD 5 billion in just five months since March 2020.
Bitcoin points to $1 billion in liquidations in 2020, as the growth of stablecoins explodes
Cointelegraph previously reported that a relevant part of this growth comes from the existing fiat in the exchanges that is transformed into USDT.
Tether and Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino summarized some of Tether’s achievements during its growth.
Tether transfers currently represent the majority of transactions and value in many of the chains where it is available. As Cointelegraph reported earlier, it is one of the largest consumers of gas at Ethereum with over USD 6 billion USDT as ERC-20 token.
Much of Tether’s $4.5 billion growth comes from trust money
The next largest tether host is Tron, with over $2.8 billion USDT, more than 2.5 times the market capitalization of TRX. The original Bitcoin-based USDT (BTC) at Omni ranks third, at $1.3 billion according to the Tether transparency page. Other protocols such as EOS, Algorand and Liquid appear to be less popular, with the largest presence at Liquid at only $17 million.
Ardoino also noted that Tether invests in new companies and scale solutions that share its „values and vision. In particular, it is financing RGB, a protocol for bringing tokenized assets into Lightning Network.
Upcoming competition with central bank-issued digital coins
Tether is currently the main stable non-governmental currency, as its competitors continue to lag behind in most metrics.
A potential threat to its dominance could come from digital central bank currencies, which would be issued by government-backed institutions to replace the existing fiduciary system.
The Ethereum blockchain is the most widely used because of the stablecoins
However, Cointelegraph reported earlier that the company sees CBDC and Tether as coexisting, citing the multi-platform nature of Tether. Some other experts agree, noting that the two types of stable currencies are likely to serve different purposes.
From Money On Chain they say that decentralized stablecoins allow for enormous efficiencies in payment circuits
Some also point to the extreme level of government surveillance expected in CBDCs, seeing crypto-native alternatives as a way to avoid prying eyes. However, it is worth noting that Tether, like other centrally issued stable currencies, has a freeze function that can be activated at the request of the police.
