The oldest stablecoin Tether has put in circulation another 10 billions USDT in April 2021, reaching a total market cap more than 50 billions.
A lot can be said about Tether, a history with controversy, mainly around the fractional dollar reserves, or is every USDT backed by equal amounts hold in banks accounts. There have been court cases etc, but up until now Tether has been able to manage the situation and keep growing. Recently there have been some news that the Tether reserves have been confirmed.
Tether has printed some more tokens meanwhile. Here we will be looking specifically at the historical rate of Tether printed.
Tether started its journey in 2015 and allegedly its founded by the Bitfinex exchange. In general, most of the stablecoins are issued by exchanges, except some cases like DAI trough a decentralized protocol. Even with all the controversy around USDT in the previous years, it still remains the most used stablecoin in the crypto industry.
Market cap
First a look at the all time market cap for Tether. Here is the chart.
This chart is a bit more dynamic than the price chart😊
The Tether market cap has literally gone parabolic in the last period. At first in 2015 and 2016 there hasn’t been much Tether printed. The first spike in the Tether market cap happened in 2017 when the overall crypto bull run was in full force.
In 2017 Tether started with around 10M at the begging and ended the year with 1.3 billion in market cap. A x130 increase.
After the bull run ended in 2018, Tether has seen a drop in the market cap going from almost 3B at the end of the bull run to under 2B. In 2019 Tether started increasing its market cap, printing more USDT and by the end of the year reached more than 4B.
In 2020 the Tether printer has and printed almost 17 billions, finishing the year with almost 21B in market cap.
But 2020 was just a warm up, compared to the first four months of 2021. More than 30 billions in Tether were print in the first four months of 2021! Will be interesting where this years end.
Tether Printed Per Month
Here is the chart for Tether printed per month.
The chart starts from 2017, since the data for 2015 and 2016 is barely visible.
We can notice the first wave of Tether printed at the end of 2017 and the begging of 2018. In January 2018 Tether printed more than 800 million USDT tokens.
Interesting there are months when the supply of Tether decreased, October 2018 being one of the most notable one, when 1 billion Tether was put out of circulation.
Some more activity in the period April – July, 2019, when more Tether was put in circulation. Then comes 2020 and almost every moths has billions of Tether printed.
Tether put in circulation in 2021: January 2021 = 5.5B, February = 8.7B, March = 5.6B and April a record high of 10.3B.
April 2021 is the first month in the history when Tether has printed more then 10B per month.
Tether Printed Per Year
Here is the amount of Tether printed on a yearly basis.
From this chart it is clear that 2020 and 2021 have been an incredible years for Tether, even with only four months in 2021.
A 16.8 billions Tether added in 2020, and 32 billions in the first four months of 2021, reaching a total market cap for Tether more than 50 billions.
60% of the total market cap of Tether has been printed in the first four months of 2021!
Obviously as the overall market cap for the crypto industry increases so does the supply of Tether and stablecoins in general. The crypto industry is now at 2 trillions in market cap and the market cap of Tether is around 50 billions, or just a 3% of the total market cap.
I don’t know the mechanics of the Tether printing and the reasons behind it. But they have went a full brrrrrrr mode.
Is there more money entering the crypto world and waiting on the sidelines? Or maybe more are taking out as profit. Tether is there to serve both sides.
