Tether Whales Fatten Their Wallets

Tether whales are on their way to holding a firm majority of the USDT supply in their wallets again. 

USDT wallet addresses with balances of over $1 million each have been increasing their Tether holdings once again, and may soon cross the point of owning more than 80% of the USDT total supply, according to data from Santiment, an on-chain analytics firm.

As seen in the data, USDT millionaire addresses are gaining buying power and have increased their Tether supply holdings by 9% over the past 9 months. The move is generally considered “a good prospect for crypto’s long-term future,” Santiment says.

The exchange inflow volumes of USDT have been decreasing since last November, and as the latest data from Glassnode clearly shows, USDT’s inflow volumes have dropped to 13-month lows. Volumes of 20 million or lower USDT were last seen on January 2021, according to analytics.

USDT is still the largest stablecoin with a market cap of nearly $78 billion, and a total supply standing at just over 80 billion. Its closest competitor, Circle’s USD Coin (USDC), follows with a $51 billion market cap and a 51.1 billion USDC total supply, as stated in data from CoinMarketCap.

In the meantime, Twitter account StablecoinPrinter reports that Tether has issued zero new coins during the first month of the year. While USDC’s supply was increased by more than $7.4 billion. 

Whale wallets made up more than 50% of total stablecoin volumes last year, where USDT acted as the leading stablecoin until its market dominance was weakened by increased regulatory scrutiny.

On the Flipside

• Tether froze three USDT wallets on the Ethereum blockchain, each holding $160 million of USDT, in mid-January 2022 due to suspicious activity. The move subsequently ignited concerns about USDT being too centralized.