tether

ARK Invest crypto analyst Lorenzo Valente stated that stablecoins have a significant network effect. Although there are thousands of stablecoins in the market, as the market capitalization threshold increases, the number of tiers is rapidly leveling off. Currently, the stablecoins that are truly worth paying attention to are those with a market capitalization exceeding 10 billion dollars, gradually moving towards the 100 billion and 500 billion dollar levels.Data shows that the number of stablecoins with a market capitalization exceeding 1 billion dollars has only increased from single digits to the current 12 since 2021, while the number of stablecoins with a market capitalization exceeding 10 billion dollars has actually decreased from its peak in 2022, with only Tether and Circle's stablecoins remaining. Valente believes that entering the 10 billion dollar market capitalization club has become very difficult, and in the future, the 100 billion dollar level stablecoins may only have two competitors for a long time, while it may take more than two years for only one to reach the 500 billion dollar level.

The Block Research released a report on September 8, stating that during the period from October 2025 to August 2026, Bitcoin fell by over 50% and the total cryptocurrency market value decreased by over $2 trillion, while the total supply of stablecoins remained around $290 billion, with about 90% issued by Tether and Circle.In the past 365 days, the transaction volume of stablecoins exceeded $90 trillion, more than doubling compared to 2025. The daily turnover rate increased from 0.38 times in August 2024 to 0.78 times in August 2026. Ethereum holds about $147 billion (turnover rate 0.51 times/day), Base holds $4.5 billion (16.7 times/day), Solana about $13 billion (1.08 times/day), and Tron over $90 billion (0.25 times/day). The Bank for International Settlements statistics indicate that the stablecoin transaction volume in 2025 was about $35 trillion, with payment-related transactions accounting for 1.1%. Chainalysis data shows that in 2025, illegal addresses received at least $154 billion in stablecoins.The GENIUS Act was signed in July 2025. In April 2026, FinCEN and OFAC jointly proposed to classify payment stablecoin issuers as financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act, and in August, the Treasury proposed a definition to clarify the scope of applicability, which is still a proposal. Companies such as Paxos, zerohash, Rain, and Altitude describe a shift from one-time KYC at onboarding to continuous lifecycle monitoring of on-chain behavior, counterparties, turnover rates, and geographic locations.

According to the official announcement, Tether has announced the joint launch of a $400 million private credit fund, StableFund, in collaboration with Fasanara Capital, aiming to attract third-party institutional capital to $3 billion.The fund will provide short-term, asset-backed credit financing to small and medium-sized enterprises in over 60 countries worldwide. Tether will provide USDT settlement infrastructure and financing opportunities, while Fasanara will act as the investment manager.Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated, "USDT is designed to be a frictionless global currency available around the clock," and through this fund, Tether's financing network will be transformed into a direct capital channel flowing to the businesses and communities that need it most.

Tether froze approximately $39.3 million USDT across 10 addresses on the Tron network earlier today, which are related to Xinbi Guarantee. Insiders revealed that Xinbi Guarantee is a guaranteed trading market that emerged around 2022 on Telegram.Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs has described it as one of the largest illegal cryptocurrency markets in Southeast Asia, stating that the platform has processed a cumulative transaction volume of about $24.2 billion. The on-chain tracking platform MistTrack was the first to disclose the news regarding the frozen USDT. This freeze indicates that Tether is further taking on-chain asset freezing measures to restrict addresses deemed to be associated with high risk or suspected illegal activities.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino revealed that Tether's P2P technology team is developing a censorship-resistant and fault-tolerant decentralized peer-to-peer search engine called Unstoppable Search Engine. The architecture supports horizontal scaling across thousands of distributed nodes and employs a fault-tolerant structure for data self-organization to maintain high availability and censorship resistance.Ardoino stated that the research and development is progressing smoothly, and the complete archived data of Wikipedia has been distributed and stored across 100 distributed nodes in the testing environment, achieving millisecond-level retrieval with excellent performance.

According to MistTrack monitoring, Tether froze approximately 39.27 million USDT across 10 addresses on the Tron network a few hours ago, which are related to Xinbi Guarantee.Previously, Tether had frozen funds related to Huiwang Guarantee, and this action seems to be another blow against illegal hosting platforms on Telegram.

Blockchain security company Hacken released an assessment report indicating that approximately half of the circulating USDT (about $91.3 billion on the Tron network) is controlled by a 2-of-3 multi-signature contract, which lacks built-in delays, cancellation processes, or reliable revocation mechanisms. Attackers only need to compromise two signature keys to change contract ownership, mint tokens, freeze addresses, clear frozen balances, or set transfer fees without accessing any user wallets. Hacken also discovered that Tether reuses the same set of six signature keys across three chains: Ethereum, Avalanche, and Celo, posing a risk of cross-chain spread.Meanwhile, stablecoin rating agency Bluechip upgraded Tether's company rating from D to C, citing that KPMG's audit showed Tether's reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.8 billion as of December 31, 2025. This is the first time Bluechip has adopted the expanded SMIDGE methodology, which incorporates Hacken's technical risk analysis. However, Hacken only gave USDT a cybersecurity score of 3.3 out of 10 and pointed out that the USDT smart contract does not have automatic reserve proof checks or a token minting cap. Once signers authorize a transaction, the contract can mint an unlimited number of tokens without a bank reserve proof.Hacken stated that it has not yet completed an equivalent assessment of Circle's USDC, and Bluechip's previous B+ rating for USDC was based on an old methodology, which cannot be directly used for technical comparison.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, Tether Treasury transferred 500 million USDT to Binance on the TRON blockchain.

According to Crypto Briefing, Colombian fintech company Plenti has completed a $3 million seed round financing, led by Tether with participation from Verda Ventures. The new funds will be used to support existing operations in Colombia and expand into Peru and Bolivia.Founded in 2022, Plenti provides multi-currency account services for freelancers and remote workers, allowing users to hold US dollars, euros, and Colombian pesos, earn balance yields, and invest in US stocks, ETFs, digital gold, and crypto assets. The company has served over 150,000 active users, with an annual transaction volume exceeding $3.1 billion, and has processed over 680 million USDT since 2023.

Tether is expanding its business beyond stablecoins by launching an open-source AI translation model that can run offline on smartphones and laptops.These models support 19 African languages, and Tether positions this technology for use in education, healthcare, and other areas with limited internet access.

According to BeInCrypto, two Thai merchants have sued Tether, claiming that their $42.4 million USDT wallet was blacklisted at the informal request of U.S. government agents without a search warrant or court order.The plaintiffs are seeking to lift the freeze and are claiming damages from Tether for the profits generated from investing the corresponding reserves during the freeze period.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that stablecoins are a more trustworthy form of currency than tokenized bank deposits, the former being almost fully backed by U.S. Treasury bonds, while the latter typically only has 10% of liquid assets backing it. Pablo Hernandez de Cos, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), mentioned that stablecoins face issues such as redemption capability, supply, interoperability, and facilitating crime, and he referred to tokenized bank deposits as a more direct path to preserving the monetary system's foundation while utilizing tokenization.Ardoino pointed out that the market capitalization of USDT has exceeded $183 billion and is used by some emerging markets for domestic and cross-border commerce. In discussions surrounding the Digital Asset Market Transparency Act (CLARITY Act), banks are concerned that allowing cryptocurrency exchanges to provide incentives for stablecoins could lead to a shift in deposits.

In response to the recent warning from Pablo Hernández de Cos, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), regarding the risks that stablecoins may pose to financial stability, Tether CEO Paolo Ardonio took to the X platform to criticize the BIS.He stated that there is a fundamental difference in the underlying risk structure between stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits. Stablecoins are essentially tools that are 100% backed by high-liquidity assets (such as U.S. Treasury bonds); in contrast, tokenized bank deposits still belong to the deposit system of banks, which typically use a fractional reserve model, with only a portion backed by high-liquidity assets.

Stablecoin issuer Tether entered Uruguay in May 2023, planning to engage in sustainable Bitcoin mining and invest in energy production with local licensed companies. The project has two mining sites in the Florida province, with an estimated investment of 60 million USD each, totaling approximately 120 million USD.Uruguay's state-owned electricity company UTE had a disagreement with Tether regarding the electricity supply contract amount. Tether's Uruguayan entity Microfin stopped paying electricity bills in May 2025 and notified of its intention to terminate the contract in June; on July 25, UTE cut off power to the mining site, with Microfin owing nearly 5 million USD and monthly electricity costs of about 2 million USD.On November 25, 2025, Tether notified the Uruguayan labor department of its cessation of operations, with 30 out of 38 local positions being eliminated. UTE stated that Microfin had settled its debts by December; in 2025, 98% of Uruguay's electricity generation came from renewable energy.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that USDT has expanded globally as an alternative to the dollar, helping developing countries access foreign currency for domestic and cross-border business activities. He emphasized that Tether's mission to promote financial inclusion is more important than ever.In 2025, economist Asdrubal Oliveros pointed out that nearly 80% of Venezuela's oil revenue is paid through stablecoins. This year, the P2P stablecoin market trading volume is equivalent to 75% of the country's monthly oil exports, with 90.2% of the orders in the Binance P2P order book containing USDT. Argentina continues to maintain demand for stablecoins after the end of currency controls, with some users utilizing them for liquidity management and hedging against local currency depreciation. Bolivia is evaluating the inclusion of USDT into its financial system, and Tether's market capitalization has surpassed $180 billion.

According to Criptonoticias, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated on August 23 that developing countries such as Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, and Turkey are increasingly using USDT, primarily for domestic and cross-border trade, and as a digital dollar and value storage tool in situations of rapid depreciation of local currencies, cash shortages in dollars, or restricted financial systems.Among them, small and medium-sized enterprises in Venezuela use USDT to settle import and export businesses, Bolivia has used it for commercial transactions including fuel procurement, Argentina's street economy and peer-to-peer markets widely use USDT for value preservation and exchange, and residents in Turkey also use USDT to cope with ongoing inflation.

According to a report by Reuters, Tether's Bitcoin mining project in Uruguay has ultimately come to a halt due to a power supply contract dispute with the local state-owned electricity company UTE, with an estimated investment scale of about $120 million. The two parties have differences regarding the contracted power supply amount, with Tether believing the relevant figure is the minimum guaranteed supply, while UTE considers it the maximum supply limit.Due to the failure to sign a new agreement and overdue electricity payments, UTE cut off power supply to two mining sites on July 25, 2025. Tether subsequently ended its local operations and laid off most of its employees. The Uruguay project was seen by Tether as the "first step" into the South American Bitcoin mining market. However, Tether continues to expand its regional energy and mining layout, having previously acquired a 70% stake in the renewable energy company Adecoagro and plans to utilize its remaining electricity for Bitcoin mining.

According to Whale Alert monitoring, Tether Treasury has just burned 2 billion USDT on Ethereum, corresponding to approximately 2.00 billion USD.

According to monitoring by Lookonchain, Circle and Tether have minted stablecoins worth $3 billion in the past 2 days.