How USDT Outpaces Competitors in the Stablecoin Race

Tether (USDT) is rapidly broadening its market presence, contrasting with the more conservative approach of its competitor, USDC.

As a dominant stablecoin, Tether has experienced significant growth, especially on alternative chains like Toncoin and Celo, in addition to its main operations on Ethereum and TRON. Its total supply has now reached $119.34 billion, with an increase of 1 billion tokens in just the past month.

While USDC focuses on the Base blockchain and compliance with EU regulations, Tether enables trading on decentralized exchanges (DEX) and streamlines payments across various platforms. Notably, USDT’s supply on Celo surged by over 68%, reaching $300 million. Toncoin has also become a key growth area for USDT, with over $668 million in value inflows and an anticipated supply increase of more than $700 million.

The total supply of stablecoins has risen to approximately $164-$169 billion, recovering to pre-FTX crash levels in 2022, including a 5.15% increase in new tokens last quarter. While TRON and Ethereum saw stablecoin supply growth of about 3% to 4%, chains like Solana, Base, and Optimism experienced stronger expansions, with Celo leading at over 68%.

USDT’s applications vary by chain; on Celo, most transfers involve centralized exchanges, with wallet-to-wallet transactions totaling $1.5 million and $276.6 million for transfers from centralized exchanges.

Only around $14 million went to decentralized financial (DeFi) applications, primarily on Uniswap. For Toncoin, USDT is utilized for gas fees, peer-to-peer payments, and supporting Telegram’s advertising ecosystem.