In a challenging cryptocurrency landscape, Tether‘s USDT has celebrated an impressive achievement: amassing over 534 million users. Established in 2014, Tether has been a cornerstone in the digital currency arena, renowned for its stablecoin that is linked to the US Dollar, offering stability against market turbulence.
What Drives the Continuous Influx of Users?
In 2025’s fourth quarter alone, Tether welcomed over 35 million new users. This growth trend has been consistent, with more than 30 million new users joining each quarter over the past two years. Despite market contractions since October 2025, the supply of USDT has seen an upward trajectory.
According to Tether, this expansion is propelled by fundamental user needs for saving, making payments, and transferring funds across borders—not merely speculative interests.
“USDT’s resilience stems primarily from saving and transfer demands,” the company noted.
The report also points to record-setting wallet balances and transaction volumes among long-term USDT holders. However, accurately assessing the total number of users remains complicated due to the mix of on-chain wallet holders and exchange users.
How Is Tether Strengthening Its Financial Reserves?
Tether has significantly bolstered its reserves, now totaling $192.9 billion, with $141.6 billion in US Treasury bonds. On a global scale, this would rank Tether’s bond holdings among the top if it were a sovereign nation.
Moreover, the company has increased its Bitcoin stash to 96,184 units and expanded its gold reserves to 127.5 tons, underlining a strategic shift to diversify their assets.
“We aim to diversify the structure of our reserves to enhance security,” Tether remarked.
In the final quarter of 2025, on-chain USDT daily transaction volumes reached an impressive $4.4 trillion. Furthermore, USDT was involved in 61.5% of all spot transactions on centralized exchanges, confirming its crucial role in the crypto space.
The beginning of 2026 saw Tether, alongside Circle, infuse about $3 billion in stablecoins into the market within just three days. Lookonchain reported Tether’s issuance of an additional $1 billion in USDT on February 4th.
Typically, such large-scale issuance indicates a flow of cash into the market, though distribution of these new tokens takes time. With increased scrutiny, the rising dominance of Tether in the market is closely monitored.
USDT recently dipped to $0.9980 against the dollar, the lowest in five years, provoking concerns over potential implications of sustained peg instability.
USDT’s growing market cap suggests it might soon rival Ethereum as the second-largest crypto. Recent data reaffirms user and transaction expansions. However, the concentration of liquidity and risk within USDT raises significant questions and challenges in the crypto ecosystem.
