Tether, commonly known as USDT, the largest stablecoin in the entire crypto-verse by market valuation has earned a new achievement.
The stablecoin’s trading volume has surpassed the likes of two major online payment services giants in the year 2022. The two major payment services giants being referred to are Visa and Mastercard.
$18.2 Trillion Worth of Settlements for Tether
The analysis data shows that in the year 2022 alone, the total transactions settled by USDT were worth $18.2 trillion.
Such a large volume of transactions in the previous year has put it ahead of the traditional payment services providers. The information was shared by the officials at Tether on January 14 via Twitter.
Settlements Achieved by Visa and Mastercard
It is quite surprising to see that the volume of Tether in the year 2022 is almost equal to the combined volume achieved by Visa and Mastercard.
As per the statistics, the trading volume achieved by Visa in the year 2022 was $14.1 trillion. On the other hand, Mastercard has achieved a trading volume worth $7.7 trillion in the same year.
Stablecoin Adoption is Growing
For years, many traditional financial service providers have continued claiming that the cryptocurrency industry is losing its traction.
Their main target is the stablecoins claiming that they are not attractive at all. They claim that people are no longer adopting stablecoins and that their fame would continue declining in the coming years.
However, the statistics shared are telling an entirely different story. They are redefining the future of finance and stablecoins.
The data shows that the adoption rate of stablecoins has been rising tremendously. The past few years have been even more promising to pertain to the adoption of stablecoins.
They have been recording massive growth lately and their trading volumes are proving to be very promising. They are testifying that the future of the fiat-pegged currencies is ensured.
Although the dollar-pegged currencies have faced several challenges in the past year, still, they have managed to sustain the pressure.
They have successfully made it through the difficult times and things are going in the right direction for them.
Countries are Recognizing Stablecoins
There was a time when the stablecoins found it difficult to gain the trust of individual investors. Today, even countries are adopting stablecoins because they know what role they can play in their economies.
The countries have started adopting stablecoins because they find them supportive of their economies. They have realized that their economies would boost with the adoption of stablecoins.
Especially, the countries that have seen their local fiat currencies face declines in worth have adopted the fiat-pegged currencies to boost their economies.
Difficult Year for Tether
Although Tether has continued growing in adoption, it faced several challenges in the year 2022. It was a difficult year for the stablecoin due to several reasons.
The first reason is the crash of one of the major stablecoins, TerraUSD (UST). It reportedly crashed in early May due to de-peg, caused by the algorithmic malfunction.
As a result, UST ended up crashing down entirely and has not made a comeback since then. As a result, many questioned the backing of the major stablecoins such as USDT and it ended up taking a lot of fire.
It was revealed that USDT was not fully backed by the collateral funds and it has tried to deal with that since then.
Then there is a growing competition that the stablecoin has been facing for the past year. Stablecoins such as USD Coin (USDC) and Binance USD (BUSD) have been gathering a lot of reputation.
They have started to rival USDT and there are chances that they may catch up with it in near future. The market capitalization of USDT at the beginning of 2022 was $83.13 billion and it fell to $65.31 billion.
While the valuation of USDT has dropped, the valuation of USDC surged up to $56 billion.
