Tether mints $1 billion USDT on Ethereum, predicting ETF approval.

The market's rise was driven by hopes that the U.S. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve a spot Ethereum (ETH) ETF for trading this Thursday.

Whale Alert first reported the minting on Tuesday, which was answered and confirmed by Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, who wrote, "PSA: 1B USDt inventory replenishment on the Ethereum Network. Note that this is an official transaction but not published, meaning that this amount will used as inventory for the next period's issuance request and chain exchange."

This is not the first time Tether has minted tokens amid spot ETF speculation. Tether minted $1 billion in USDT tokens in January during spot Bitcoin ETF rumors. The price of Ethereum (ETH) on that day ranged from $2,204 to $2,294.61.

Ethereum surges

Ethereum's value has increased by 15% on Tuesday amid speculation, and other top-performing coins have also surged. This increase is due to the higher probability of Ethereum ETF approval.

Some think this latest minting is a preemptive move for SEC approval of a spot Ethereum ETF.

Use cases for Tether

This USDT token increase indicates that more funds will flow into crypto, especially into ETH and Ethereum coins. These tokens are held in the Tether treasury as “authorized but not issued.” According to the Tether Transparency page, there was $87.8 million worth of USDT in Ethereum as of May 20.

The move comes as Deutsche Bank analysts highlight Tether's lack of transparency. They warned of potentially severe consequences if the USDT stablecoin collapses, given its dominant position in the stablecoin market, which currently exceeds $160 billion in total capitalization. Tether's market capitalization surpassed $111 billion, controlling about 70% of the stablecoin market.