Tether, a major stablecoin issuer, has introduced a new tool to facilitate the transfer of its Tether (USDT) stablecoin across different blockchains. This move comes as USDT reaches a market capitalization of $100 billion.
The blockchain recovery plan, launched on March 4, aims to ensure uninterrupted access to USDT in the event of disruptions on any of the blockchain networks used for USDT transactions. As of March 4, Tether reports that USDT is available on 14 different blockchains, including Tron, Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and Omni. Tron and Ethereum are the two largest blockchains for USDT, accounting for 51% and 43% of all issued USDT, respectively.
Despite its reliance on blockchains like Tron and Ethereum, Tether emphasizes that USDT is “independent of blockchains” and that the blockchains are solely used as a transport layer.
To mitigate the risk of unresponsiveness, unreliability, or unusability of a blockchain, Tether has developed an official recovery tool that enables users to transfer USDT between blockchains. The migration process can be initiated through a web interface or command-line tools. Users need to cryptographically sign a migration request to verify their ownership of Tether tokens. This can be done using browser extension wallets like MetaMask or hardware wallets such as Ledger or Trezor. Alternatively, users can input their private key directly through a command-line interface and sign the necessary message using an open-source script on their local machine.
Tether’s recovery tool launch coincides with USDT reaching a significant milestone in market value. On March 4, USDT’s market cap surpassed $100 billion for the first time in history. Currently, USDT is the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, trailing behind Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), which have market caps of $1.4 trillion and $442 billion, respectively.
In terms of daily trading volume, USDT leads as the largest cryptocurrency, with $132 billion in daily trades and transactions as of March 5. BTC and ETH follow closely with $82 billion and $33 billion in daily transactions, respectively.