December 11, 2024
According to new on-chain data, Tether has just minted $1 billion worth of USDT tokens. The company has been minting in massive quantities recently, reporting record profits in Q3 2024.
However, today, Binance and Circle announced a partnership to take on Tether, signaling a potential new major competitor for the company’s share of the stablecoin market.
Tether issues massive USDT
On-chain data reports from December 11 show a massive new minting of USDT tokens. However, this is not unusual for one of the world’s most important stablecoins. Tether has been minting unusually high amounts of USDT recently, with 2 billion on December 6 and 19 billion last month.
Overall, the company has been performing positively during the current bull market, continuing its relative dominance of the broader stablecoin market. Its latest earnings report revealed that it posted record profits in Q3 2024, as demand for USDT soared.
However, some social media rumors have linked this release to a potential bigger problem for the company. Binance and Circle have reportedly announced a new partnership to use USDC to take on Tether’s market share. Circle’s USDC token is jointly owned by Coinbase, suggesting an alliance between two major exchanges with longstanding rivalry.
“Binance has undergone a profound transformation in its business, and over time, we mutually agreed that it made sense to pair one of the most trusted and regulated stablecoins in the world,” said Kash Razaghi, CBO at Circle.
However, this partnership is very new, and Tether has been issuing unusually high amounts of USDT over the past month. If the company is preparing for a new competition, it is in its early stages. In any case, there is not enough information to speculate on Tether’s future trajectory.