Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer on the market, has seen its market capitalization hit a new record, topping $83.2 billion.
The stablecoin (USDT), which is pegged one-to-one to the US dollar and is backed by cash reserves and cash-equivalent assets, has regained the $20 billion in market value it lost following the collapse of the rival stablecoin. TerraUSD last year. year.
โTodayโs numbers show that people want access to financial freedom, and when given that access, they will make use of it,โ Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether, said in a statement.
"Between our battle-tested resilience in the face of market volatility and our industry-leading transparency practices, Tether has proven it can be trusted and customers are responding in kind."
The instability that rocked the cryptocurrency market last year saw Tether, as well as other major stablecoins, lose a large chunk of their market capitalization as investors began pulling out of the market amid heightened uncertainty.
While Tether managed to regain the market value it lost last year, other stablecoins have not been as successful.
For example, USD Coin (USDC), the second-largest stablecoin, currently has a market capitalization of around $29 billion, far less than its all-time record of over $56 billion, according to data from CoinGecko.
According to Kaiko researchers, Tether is used in more than 50% of all transactions on centralized exchanges.
Historically, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding Tether, with many disputed claims that it has enough reserves to justify its one-to-one peg claim, as well as the quality of the assets that make up those reserves.
In 2021, the New York Attorney General solved with Tether on accusations of mixing client and corporate funds and lying about their reserves to investors.
Tether and its sister crypto exchange Bitfinex have never admitted any wrongdoing.
Tether pushes Bitcoin mining
Tether recently Announced which is establishing a Bitcoin mining operation in Uruguay using renewable energy in a bid to diversify its income mix and "support and promote sustainable Bitcoin mining."
Notably, Tether is not just mining Bitcoin, it will start buying it in bulk every month.
Last month, the company announced that it would change its treasury management strategy to start investing a portion of its net profit in Bitcoin.
The company pledged to use up to 15% of his net profit to buy Bitcoin, following in the footsteps of electric car maker giant Tesla and tech company MicroStrategy.
Meanwhile, Tether has also reported a first quarter net profit of $1.48 billion.
The company has "approximately 85% of its investments in cash, cash equivalents and other short-term deposits, along with a 20% increase in token supply quarter-over-quarter and ~2.5 billion in excess reserves (in addition to the minimum of 100% reserves)," he said in the recent announcement.
