Tether (USDT) is the world's first and most widely used stablecoin and the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. USDT is an Ethereum-based, asset-backed, stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. Hence, Tether's value is meant to remain consistently close to 1 USD.
Initially called Realcoin, Tether was launched in 2014 by Reeve Collins, Craig Sellars, and Brock Pierce. USDT tokens are issued by Tether Limited, a company controlled by Bitfinex, and can theoretically be redeemed at any time for an equivalent amount.
How does Tether work
Tether was initially built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, but its network has now been expanded to run on over ten different blockchain protocols, including Ethereum (ETH), Tron (TRX), and Solana (SOL). Tether was also launched on the Omni layer, a platform for creating and trading assets on the Bitcoin network.
USDT can be minted or destroyed by its issuing company Tether Limited, and more importantly, be quickly and cheaply transferred to individuals over any supporting blockchain network. Whenever new USDT tokens are issued, Tether is meant to allocate the corresponding USD amount to its reserves, in order to ensure that USDT remains fully backed by cash and cash equivalents.
What is Tether used for?
USDT has become popular for trading across major exchanges due to its ease of use and wide acceptance. In most cases, users can also conveniently move their holdings between their Web3 wallets and exchanges.
Tether can also be used to gain some level of exposure to the US dollar. Tether Limited publishes a daily report on the value of its reserves and has quarterly assurance opinions issued by external accountants.
USDT developments
In an updated statement, Tether revealed that USDT tokens are no longer backed entirely by US dollar deposits. Instead, Tether is allegedly backed by reserves, including traditional currency, cash equivalents, short-term deposits, commercial papers, US treasury bills, corporate bonds, secured loans, precious metals, corporate funds, and more.
In January 2021, Tether Limited minted a record 2 billion USDT tokens in a single week. This came during tremendous growth in the crypto markets. The growing interest in USDT was due to several reasons, including an increasing lack of trust in the traditional financial system and rising institutional interest in cryptocurrencies.
In November 2021, USDT launched on the Avalanche platform. Avalanche, launched in 2020, is one of the blockchain industry's fastest and cheapest-to-use smart contracts platforms. The Avalanche-native USDT was first supported by Bitfinex and was said to offer cheaper and quicker USDT transactions.
In April 2022, USDT support was added for the blockchain network Kusama making Kusama the tenth network to support the asset-backed stablecoin. This represented a milestone for Kusama and an especially significant one for USDT. Kusama is a decentralized network of specialized, parallel blockchains closely related to the much more extensive Polkadot network and is often referred to as Polkadot's Canary network.
In May 2022, USDT was launched on the Polygon network. Polygon is an Ethereum scaling solution, also known as a sidechain or Layer-2 network, known for charging significantly lower transaction fees and being faster than its main network, Ethereum. At the time, Polygon had processed over $1.6 billion in transactions, had over $5 billion in locked value, and had more than 19,000 decentralized apps (DApps) running on it. Polygon is the 11th blockchain network that USDT was launched on.
Tether's expansion continued during 2023 with key partnerships such as that with Argentinian crypto payments provider KriptonMarket. The partnership supports USDT transactions at the Central Market of Buenos Aires, allowing customers to pay for goods using USDT. The collaboration also allows vendors to pay a portion of their employees' salaries in the stablecoin.
On August 12, 2024, USDT reached a new record market cap of $115 billion, on its way to capturing a 70% share of the total stablecoin market. The milestone followed noteworthy growth for the leading stablecoin, with USDT increasing its market cap by more than 40% between September 2023 and August 2024.
In the same month, Tether announced the expansion of USDT to the Aptos blockchain in a move that aimed to improve accessibility to digital currencies globally. The integration of USDT with Aptos brought lower gas fees and high performance to users of the chain, opening the door to wider adoption.
USDT price and tokenomics
Tether Limited controls the minting and burning of USDT tokens. IN theory, when there is demand for USDT, Tether mints new tokens and when USDT is sold, the corresponding number of tokens is burned.
There are about 116.99 billion USDT in circulation as of mid-2024, and USDT has a current total supply of 118 billion. Some USDT tokens are held in reserve by Tether Limited, explaining the gap between the number of tokens in circulation and the number in existence.
USDT has no supply cap, so any number of USDT tokens could potentially be created by Tether Limited, if there is sufficient collateral to back them. Minting new tokens doesn’t erode the value of existing tokens. Likewise, burning USDT tokens doesn’t increase token value.
About the founders
Tether was founded in 2014 by a group of early crypto adopters and Bitcoin enthusiasts passionate about digitizing fiat currencies. Its origins lie in the Mastercoin protocol, based on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Brock Pierce was one of the original members of the Mastercoin Foundation who helped develop and promote Mastercoin. Pierce, Craig Sellars, and Reeve Collins co-founded Tether in 2014, with Mastercoin protocol as its technological foundation.
Tether's precursor, "Realcoin," was announced in July 2014, and the first tokens were issued in October 2014. The project was renamed Tether in November of that year, alongside an announcement of entering the private beta phase, with three currencies: USTether (for USD), EuroTether (for EUR), and YenTether (for JPY).
Brock Pierce is a widely known entrepreneur and co-founder of multiple high-profile entertainment and crypto projects, including Blockchain Capital and Block.one, the company that created the EOS blockchain. He also served as Director of a non-profit organization called Bitcoin Foundation, created to improve and promote Bitcoin.
Reeve Collins is also a serial entrepreneur who had already co-founded successful companies like Traffic Marketplace, RedLever, and Pala Interactive. On the other hand, Craig Sellars has been an active member of the Omni Foundation and associated with multiple organizations, including Bitfinex, Synereo, MaidSafe Foundation, and Factom.
