Tether’s USDT market cap has surpassed $150 billion in circulating supply for the first time ever. This continues a rapid growth that has seen it gain more than $11 billion in market cap this year alone.
The stablecoin issuer celebrated the milestone achievement on X (formerly Twitter), highlighting its massive impact since launching in 2014.
The post reads:
“Born in 2014, Tether didn’t just launch USD₮ — it launched the entire stablecoin industry. Today, USD₮ is trusted by 400+ million people & powers the digital economy.”
With the new milestone, USDT’s dominance in the stablecoin sector also slightly increased to 62%. This is likely fueled by its 3.79% growth in the last month, according to Defillama, as compared to its closest competitor, Circle USDC, seeing only a 1.23% increase.
Defillama data shows that BlackRock USD (BUIDL) is the fastest-growing with over a billion market cap. The circulating supply of BUILD, which is actually tokenized US treasuries, has increased by 19.30% in the past month to $2.89 billion. MakerDAO stablecoin DAI market cap is also up 12.07%, while PayPal PYUSD has increased by 5.16%
Stablecoin coins flip Visa in transaction volume (Source: Bitwise)
Interestingly, most of the recent increase in USDT supply is down to mints on the Tron network. According to Artemis Analytics data, the chain has experienced a $12.2 billion increase in stablecoins supply over the last three months. This is far above the $2.3 billion increase on BNB Smart Chain and $1.7 billion on Ethereum within the same period.
Overall, the stablecoin sector is also at an all-time high at $242.81 billion after a 3.75% increase in the last 30 days. While USDT and USDC remain the biggest, smaller stablecoins have seen more increase in supply recently.
With the sector’s continued growth, it has also become one of the biggest holders of US treasuries. According to the Bitwise Q1 report for the crypto industry, the Stablecoin sector has overtaken Germany, Mexico, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia, among the leading foreign holders of US treasuries.
Stablecoin sees over $3.4 trillion in transaction volume in a month
Meanwhile, the rise in USDT supply only reflects the growing influence of stablecoins in transactions. Data from Bitwise shows that stablecoins flipped Visa for the first time in annual transaction volume in 2024
The trend will likely continue this year, given that stablecoin adoption has continued and is reflected in transaction volume. According to data from Artemis, the onchain transaction volume for stablecoins in the last 30 days is $3.4 trillion, representing a 31.45% increase.
Stablecoins have over $3 trilllion in transaction volume over the last 30 days (Source: Artemis Analytics)
When adjusted with MEV and intraexchange transaction volume reduced, it is still at $2.3 trillion in the last 30 days with a daily average of around $75 billion in volume.
The number of transactions with stablecoins has also increased significantly over the last 30 days. The 717.6 million on-chain transactions mean stablecoins have seen a 20.70% increase in use in that period through 28.7 million unique addresses.
Payment giants investing in stablecoins
With stablecoins starting to eat into the market share of payment processors, it is unsurprising that these companies are also adopting stablecoins into their offerings.
Fintech company Stripe recently launched a stablecoin account for businesses in 101 countries and is planning a corporate stablecoin card in partnership with Ramp. This comes after it bought the stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge.
PayPal PYUSD stablecoin, which launched last year, has also seen significant growth this year and is now close to $1 billion in market cap after early struggles. The recent growth is likely influenced by the firm’s decision to introduce a 3.7% annual yield on its stablecoin.
Even Visa recently invested an undisclosed amount in BVNK, a startup focused on stablecoin payments infrastructure. The investment reflects how the company now sees stablecoins as part of the global payment infrastructure.
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