Tether’s USDT Breaks $150B Supply—Because Nothing Says ’Stable’ Like Printing a Small Nation’s GDP

Tether just minted another few billion reasons for crypto skeptics to clutch their pearls. USDT’s circulating supply now tops $150 billion—enough to buy every Premier League team twice, with change left for a few NFT apes.

The Stablecoin That Won’t Quit

While regulators foam about ‘unbacked’ tokens, Tether keeps scaling like a DeFi yield farm in bull mode. The 150B milestone comes just months after crossing $100B—proving that demand for dollar-pegged crypto isn’t slowing, even as traditional banks sweat over reserve audits.

Cynic’s Corner

Fun fact: $150B is roughly the GDP of Hungary. Let that sink in while waiting for Tether’s next ‘attestation’ report.

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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