As the total market capitalization of stablecoins declines, Tether (USDT) is one step away from its all-time high of $83 billion.
Not only that, in this unfinished April alone, USDT’s trading volume accounted for 79% of the total stablecoin volumes traded on centralized crypto-exchanges.
Tether (USDT) stablecoin gets steadily closer to its market cap ATH
For stablecoins, determining growth is done primarily by considering market capitalization (or market cap), as the price is pegged to the underlying assets such as fiat currencies or other assets.
CCData’s Stablecoins & CBDCs report analyzed the performance of this market, revealing that in April the total market capitalization of stablecoins fell by 1.08%, which through April 24 is $131 billion.
This total market capitalization is the lowest since September 2021, thus stating that April is the 13th consecutive month of decline.
Yet in this rather “disappointing” scenario, it seems that one stablecoin in particular is not following the general trend. Tether (USDT), in fact, is one step away from hitting its all-time high of over $83 billion in market cap again.
At the time of writing, USDT’s total market capitalization is $81.11 billion.
Not only that, looking only at this month still in progress, USDT’s trading volume accounted for 79.0% of all stablecoin volume.
In this sense, with 2,931 trading pairs, USDT also represents the largest counterpart used and traded in centralized crypto-exchanges.
Stablecoin: Tether’s (USDT) dominance rises for the fifth consecutive month
Also in terms of dominance, the report reveals that Tether is up for the fifth consecutive month, rising to 62.1%. This dominance turns out to be USDT’s highest since April 2021, two years ago.
However, USDT is not the only stablecoin experiencing growth. And indeed, TrueUSD (TUSD) has been blessed by the new zero-fee spot trading service for TUSD’s BTC and ETH pairs on Binance.
Thanks to this move, TUSD saw a pump in its trading volume on the most popular crypto-exchange, rising to an all-time high of 15.9%, trading $987 million on 22 April.
At the time of writing, TUSD is the third-largest stablecoin by trading volume, with a 6.5% market share (on centralized crypto-exchanges), surpassing USDC for the first time since June 2020.
The new US stablecoin bill
Recently, a new stablecoin bill was introduced in the US Congress, welcomed by Tether (USDT).
Indeed, the world’s leading stablecoin said that such regulation could provide clarity as well as benefit the digital token economy.
In practice, the proposed idea aims to create a viable regulatory framework for stablecoins in the US by putting the central bank (Fed) in charge of issuers of non-bank stablecoins. In this way, Tether or Circle issuing USDC would be subject to Federal Reserve oversight.
Penalties for those who would not follow these new rules include imprisonment. For instance, if a stablecoin issuer fails to register with authorities they could face up to five years in prison, as well as a $1 million fine.