Stablecoins have become an essential part of the crypto industry. The crypto dollars have been useful for people outside of US, where there local currency is not performing at best. More people and businesses are starting to accept and work with crypto dollars. 

We are now witnessing a whole new sector emerging in the crypto industry. 
Tether has been the first the first stablecoin and has kept its dominance through the years. The market cap for Tether has been growing. But in the recent years as the sector has matured, we are now seeing a strong competition in this are of the industry. 
USDC seems to be on a rise and the number one competitor for Tether. Lets take a look. 



 ![01.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmSJv8MpkX2rLWwcjGjhZWgtrDxrpbVx7iBQHG3fwcEsyz/01.png)




Tether started its journey in 2015 and allegedly it founded by the Bitfinex exchange. In general, most of the stablecoins are issued by exchanges, except some cases like DAI trough a decentralized protocol. 

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. 
One of the biggest pro for Tether is the way they handled the massive withdrawals that happened in May 2022, because of the UST collapse. Around 15B was withdrawn and they managed to provide the liquidity. 

With this said, lets take a look at the data for USDT.


## Daily Tether Printed


Here is the chart for the USDC printed per day. 

 

![image005.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmQTXzFXtZwwKMEJwoSuq4bhZWmzyEFVv4LUdoGVeSXZCD/image005.png)



As we can see in the first years there was not a lot of printing for USDT. The larger amounts started to come in 2020 and increased significantly in 2021.

On occasions there were more then 1B USDT issued or burned per day. 

**When we zoom in 2022 – 2023 we get this:**

 

![image007.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmSdtNDxVBLqdmhXFnZDC56H7rcj6oA2tAtpUxn2kipE2z/image007.png)



We can notice the sharp drops in May, when for a few days there was between 2 and 3 billions USDT withdrawals. Another drop happened in November when FTX happened, but not as large as the one from May. Overall the Tether supply has been going down in 2022. 


## Monthly USDT Printed

Here is the monthly chart.

 

![image009.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmZusH5CRNeAoW5LgiYvgFGwiYr5Zr8X12nzfSk2oMvGmu/image009.png)



The record for USDT printing on a monthly level is in April and May 2021, with 10.5 billions printed in each of these two months. On the down side the record for USDT burned has been May 2022, with 10.7 billions burned in that month. A totally opposite situation in just one year. 
June 2022 has a negative of 6 billions and November is around 4 billions. In the last months, December and January 2023 there is a small expansion in the Tether supply. 

## Tether Supply

The chart for the USDT supply looks like this.
 

![image001.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmQxnLBXq3CK4bp4RbUAk2AKwrJwxaRHTWuVtTBqERQomB/image001.png)



Quite a big increase in 2020 – 2021 period. Then in 2022 in May a big drop and some ups and downs afterwards.

**When we zoom in 2022 – 2023 we get this:**

 

![image003.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmV3z3KBjSuoi9PDng4QCY9V2QtYfxKqDw5ror2SD5p9UX/image003.png)


At the beginning of 2022 Tether was around 79B, and grow slowly to around **83B**, that marked the peak in April. A sharp drop afterwards to 65B in June, a small increase to 70B, and again a drop in November to 65B. Now again a small increase to **68B** where Tether is standing now. 


## USDC VS USDT

How is Tether doing against the number one competitor USDC? USDC has came a bit later to the scene so it has some catching up to do. 

Here is the chart.

 
![image013.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmcC7xZp6jMiSTQaKJLXqZMHWUrBjffTyXbYRMP4CH61Lp/image013.png)



Up until May 2022, both of the stablecoins have similar pattern. The UST happened and the market cap for Tether decreased while the market cap for USDC increased. 



**If we zoom in 2022 - 2023 we got this:**



![image015.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmY6dvq892K5RPi85SUTsojqCCvGL6WVM2yftsosT53w4Z/image015.png)
 


These two are moving almost in the opposite directions. We can see the downtrend for Tether in May 2022, and the increase for USDC. In July 2022, USDC was the closest to Tether with 55B to 65B. Since then, Tether has managed to increase its lead again and **now we are at 68B to 41B**. Interesting that the market cap for USDC has been going down in the resent months, even with the positive movements in the crypto markets. 

----

2022 has been a challenging year for Tether, especially in May. Tether managed to provide a 15B in liquidity in a short period of time and has proven that they can act fast and pool out liquidity if needed. If for any reason they were not able to pull out the needed liquidity, the consequences for the whole industry would have been catastrophic. 
Its also interesting to notice how whenever there is some type of crisis in the crypto market, the Tether market cap goes down, and the USDC goes up. Its an obvious sign that users have bigger trust in USDC. But even with this, Tether has managed to keep its number one position as a stablecoin, and has increased the lead as the market turns in the last months. 

All the best
@dalz

Posted Using [LeoFinance <sup>Beta</sup>](https://leofinance.io/@dalz/can-tether-keeps-its-dominance-in-the-stablecoins-arena-or-data-on-tether-performance)