’s stablecoin has recovered all of the roughly $20 billion in market value it lost following the collapse of algorithmic rival TerraUSD a little over a year ago.
The circulating supply of the world’s most actively-traded digital asset topped the previous record of $83.2 billion, set in May 2022, according to a live tracker published by British Virgin Islands-based Tether. The firm’s USDT stablecoin is pegged at one-to-one with the dollar, and maintains that value by supporting it with reserves of cash and cash-equivalent assets.
USDT’s recovery is a testament to the dominant role it plays in crypto as a means for conducting transactions and storing value. The stablecoin’s circulation dropped about 20% in the second quarter of last year as Terra’s collapse destablized crypto markets, kickstarting a period filled with bankruptcies, high-profile scandals and a plunge in most cryptocurrencies’ prices.
