Stablecoin issuer Tether has minted another 1 billion USDT tokens on the Tron network, pushing its total issuance to $33 billion over the past year.
The latest minting occurred on August 20, with blockchain data revealing the transfer of the new tokens to Tether’s treasury wallet on Tron. On-chain analytics platform Lookonchain reported that Tether’s treasury wallet has minted 33 billion USDT in the last year, with 19 billion on Tron and 14 billion on Ethereum.
The newly minted coins follow a similar transaction on Ethereum on August 13, where Tether added another 1 billion USDT. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino explained on X that the Ethereum mint was an “inventory replenish,” meaning the tokens were authorized but not immediately issued, to manage liquidity and meet future issuance requests.
This move by Tether is akin to the traditional financial practice of inventory replenishment, where companies stock up on goods in anticipation of future demand without causing surplus inventory. In Tether’s case, this involves creating new USDT that are stored in the company’s treasury as reserves, not immediately released into the market, and therefore not part of the USDT’s total market capitalization.
However, these transactions raise eyebrows among some industry observers, with skepticism about the transparency of Tether’s practices. Some commentators questioned the decision-making process behind these large mints and suggested impacts on the Bitcoin market, drawing speculative links between Tether’s USDT issuance and Bitcoin price movements.
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As of August 19, Tether’s transparency page showed that only $36 million USDT tokens on Tron were “authorized but not issued,” highlighting the strong demand for the stablecoin on the network. Tron currently holds a 37.9% share of the total stablecoin market, with over $61 billion in stablecoins on the blockchain.
Tether’s consistent minting activity suggests a need to maintain a sufficient supply to meet ongoing demand, particularly on the Tron network, which continues to lead in stablecoin supply.
