Stablecoin Issuer Tether Minting Billions of USDT Tokens
Tether, one of the leading issuers of stablecoins, has been actively minting new USDT tokens in recent months. According to blockchain data provider Whale Alert, Tether has issued a total of 4 billion USDT over the past month alone. The latest minting occurred on the Tron blockchain, where Tether issued 1 billion USDT on November 10th. This comes just days after Tether issued another 1 billion USDT on Ethereum on November 9th. In addition to these recent issuances, Tether had previously issued 2 billion USDT in two batches on the Tron blockchain in October and November.
Paolo Ardoino, the Chief Technology Officer and new CEO of Tether, commented on the latest minting transaction on the Tron network. He explained that this transaction was an “authorized but not issued” transaction, meaning that the tokens will be used as inventory for future issuance requests and chain swaps.
Tether’s Minting Activity in 2023
The recently minted USDT tokens make up a significant share of the total USDT issued this year. According to Whale Alert data, Tether has minted a total of 22.75 billion USDT in 2023. Out of this total, 13 billion USDT, or 57%, were issued on the Tron blockchain, while the remaining 9.75 billion USDT were issued on the Ethereum blockchain.
Tether has been actively minting new stablecoins throughout the year. In March, they minted a staggering 9 billion USDT coins, in addition to the 3 billion minted in the previous month. They also minted 3.75 billion USDT between June and July.
However, Tether has also been burning some of its coins. They burned 1.2 billion USDT on the Tron blockchain in August, as well as significant amounts of Tron and Ethereum USDT earlier in the year.
Reactions from the Cryptocurrency Community
The recent minting transactions by Tether have garnered attention from the cryptocurrency community. One observer pointed out the similarities between Tether’s aggressive minting and a previous banking crisis in March 2023. The observer noted that “last time this much Tether got printed in a week a whole bank blew up.” However, Tether has previously denied any exposure to the banking crisis and reiterated that it had no exposure to the affected banks.
Tether’s Future Plans
Aside from the minting and burning of coins, Tether has been working on integrating new projects into its ecosystem. Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of Tether, announced on Twitter that the company is preparing to announce five new projects in 2024. He hinted that some of these projects could potentially disrupt popular centralized services in the Web2 space.
Tether’s active minting and burning, as well as its plans for future projects, demonstrate the company’s commitment to maintaining a stable and robust ecosystem for its stablecoin, USDT.
