Tether, the company behind the USDT stablecoin, announced that approximately 330 million on-chain wallets and accounts had received the digital asset by the end of Q3 2024. These accounts and wallets are a crucial measure of user engagement.
In the very first Tether Insight report, Philip Gladwell, Tether’s chief economics officer, pointed out that USDT’s user base has experienced sustained and accelerated growth.
Over the past four quarters, user numbers have grown at an average of 9% per quarter, with this year’s third quarter being the company’s most successful quarter to date with 36.25 million new users.
Gladwell emphasized that this figure excludes those who only use USDT on centralized exchanges, which represent millions of additional users. He emphasized the importance of these numbers, comparing the total user base to the population size of the United States. According to him, the widespread adoption of USDT illustrates its role as a key player in daily financial activities.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino commented on the significance of this milestone: to report:
“USDt has become the digital dollar for emerging markets and developing countries. Numbers don’t lie.”
Tether’s USDT is the largest stablecoin, with a market capitalization of nearly $120 billion, and controls approximately 69% of the stablecoin market.
L2 Chains and TON drive Tether’s growth
USDT is widely available on various blockchain platforms, with the highest usage recorded on Tron, Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum.
However, over the past year, the fastest percentage growth has been seen on Ethereum Layer 2 networks such as Optimism, Arbitrum and Polygon. Other chains such as Avalanche and Solana have also contributed to USDT’s growing footprint.
Additionally, USDT recently launched on the TON and Celo networks. TON has experienced rapid user growth, adding 3.3 million new users in just six months, accounting for approximately 1% of all USDT on-chain users.
Crypto analyst JA Maartun, citing data from CryptoQuant: noted a significant increase in USDT adoption on the TON blockchain, with over 4.5 million transactions in the last 30 days alone. He also highlighted that USDT transactions on TON last month amounted to approximately $300 million.
According to the latest data, Tether reports that the net USDT supply on TON is currently approximately $738 million.