Tether is teaming up with TRM Labs and TRON to form a “T3 Financial Crime Unit” to combat the illicit use of its USDT stablecoin on the TRON blockchain, according to a Sept. 10 statement shared with CryptoSlate.

Over the past year, global authorities have raised alarms about the illegal use of USDT on TRON. In January, the UN highlighted a surge in fraudulent transactions involving USDT, particularly in Southeast Asia, and labeled TRON as a “preferred” network for such illicit activities—Tether and TRON pushed back against these claims.

Yet, market insiders point to a double-edged sword. USDT on TRON has one of the cheapest fees in the market and is also very easy to use. These perks inadvertently appeal to honest users and crooks who use them for illegal activities.

Justin Sun, the founder of TRON, acknowledged this, noting that the new collaboration will demonstrate the positive potential of blockchain technology and signal that illegal activities will not be tolerated in the industry.

Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, emphasized that the company was committed to taking proactive steps to uphold security and trust within the ecosystem.

Data from Tether shows that nearly half of its $118 billion USDT supply is on the TRON blockchain, with around 39% on Ethereum.

Advancing crypto education

In a parallel development, Tether is advancing its educational initiatives through a partnership with Celo-based P2P payments firm Valora and the Stabila Foundation, according to a Sept. 10 statement.

This collaboration aims to promote the adoption of blockchain technology through an educational program focused on stablecoins. The partnership will highlight USDT’s practical applications on Celo, a low-cost, fast-growing Ethereum Layer 2 solution. The program will cover use cases such as remittances, payments, value storage, yield earning, and staking.

The Valora Learning Program will target emerging markets in Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, Turkey, and Vietnam. Participants will use the Valora app to demonstrate stablecoin usage and gain hands-on experience while earning rewards through the Valora wallet.

Ardoino noted that this initiative would revolutionize financial interactions in underserved communities. He added:

“This collaboration with Valora on Celo allows individuals to experience the power of stablecoin technology in real-world, everyday situations, empowering them to confidently and effortlessly participate in the global economy.”

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Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin has crossed the $16 trillion mark in total cumulative volume.

While this number falls short of traditional financial powerhouses like Visa, which processed over $12 trillion in payments just last year, it highlights the remarkable growth of stablecoins. Despite their relatively short existence, stablecoins have quickly established themselves as key players in the global financial market.

Stablecoins play an essential role in the crypto ecosystem. They facilitate the smooth transfer of funds, support seamless trading between tokens, and enable payments, especially for cross-border transactions.

Launched in 2018, USDC is the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, with $34.6 billion currently in circulation. Circle has strategically positioned USDC as a more regulatory-compliant stablecoin, differentiating it from competitors like USDT.

This approach has contributed to USDC’s dominance in transactions this year, surpassing Tether’s USDT despite having a smaller circulating supply. According to Artemis, USDC now accounts for roughly 50% of the total stablecoin transaction volume.

Solana fuelling USDC’s growth

USDC’s transaction volume is primarily driven by the Solana blockchain, which holds more than three-quarters of the stablecoin market share. Data from DeFiLlama indicates that USDC makes up about 65% of Solana’s $3.98 billion stablecoin supply.

A stablecoin dashboard created by Visa Inc., in collaboration with Allium Labs, shows that USDC’s transaction volume on Solana has soared to approximately $8.29 trillion since the beginning of last year. Its nearest rival, USDT on TRON, saw a volume of $7 trillion during the same timeframe.

This growth isn’t surprising, given Solana’s popularity for its speed and lower transaction costs, which have attracted interest from traditional financial players like PayPal.

The recent surge in memecoin trading and DeFi activities on Solana has further propelled its rise. Over the past few months, the market has even seen instances when trading activity on Solana surpassed Ethereum’s.

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Tether said it is expanding its USDT stablecoin to the layer-1 blockchain network Aptos, according to an Aug. 19 statement.

This move furthers USDT presence across various blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Tron, Avalanche, Celo, and Solana. However, most of Tether’s $116 billion supply remains concentrated on TRON and Ethereum, accounting for 88% of the total supply, according to DeFillama data.

Why Aptos?

Tether explained that integrating USDT on the Aptos blockchain will offer extremely low gas fees, costing a fraction of a penny. This will make transactions more cost-effective, benefiting microtransactions and large-scale enterprise operations.

The stablecoin issuer also cited Aptos’ strong developer community and thriving ecosystem as critical factors in its decision.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino praised Aptos’ innovative technology, stating that it provides a solid platform for faster and more cost-effective USDT transactions. He emphasized that this collaboration aligns with Tether’s commitment to innovation while offering users stable, reliable financial tools.

Aptos, co-founded by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, aims to offer a scalable and user-friendly infrastructure for decentralized apps and smart contracts. Both founders were previously involved in Meta’s Diem blockchain project.

Recently, Aptos experienced a surge in activity due to the launch of the click-to-earn game Tapos 2. On Aug. 15, the network processed over 326 million transactions, reaching a peak of over 12,000 transactions per second.

DeFi opportunity

Market observers suggest this move will inject new energy into Aptos’s DeFi sector.

VibrantX Finance, a yield aggregator platform, noted that the integration could boost liquidity in the Aptos ecosystem. This would facilitate smoother transactions, attract new users and developers, and increase capital inflow.

It added:

“With USDT, a widely recognized and trusted stablecoin, more users can easily participate in DeFi activities on Aptos including vibrantx.finance. As a leading stablecoin, USDT can also bridge the gap between Aptos and other blockchains, expanding DeFi possibilities.”

According to DeFillama data, Aptos is the fourteenth largest DeFi network, with $730 million in total value of assets locked.

The news is notable, considering Tether recently removed native support for EOS and Alogrand earlier this year amid a shift in  focus towards “enhancing community-driven blockchain support.”

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Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino predicted that brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) could become mainstream consumer products within the next 20 years.

Ardoino’s remarks followed a breakthrough by Blackrock Neurotech, a portfolio company of Tether. The firm successfully restored speech in a patient who had nearly lost the ability to communicate via its brain implant

BCI

On Aug. 14, the New England Journal of Medicine published a report detailing how Blackrock Neurotech’s innovative text-to-speech brain implant enabled an Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patient to speak again.

Ardoino noted that this breakthrough might be just the beginning, with BCIs potentially offering solutions for millions worldwide suffering from paralysis, lost functions, and neurological disorders that hinder basic abilities like walking, seeing, hearing, or talking.

Ardoino likened BCIs to having direct, low-latency access to computing power and AI capabilities, bypassing the usual information loss that occurs when converting thoughts into speech. He envisions a future where BCIs could lead to a new class of humans, “Human Sapiens^3,” whose brains would have access to advanced computational power, infinite knowledge, and AI.

BCIs are advanced devices that allow users to control applications or devices using only their thoughts. Ardoino’s keen interest in this field is aligned with Tether’s majority stake in Blackrock Neurotech, a company directly competing with Elon Musk‘s Neuralink to bring these technologies to the public.

However, Ardoino concluded that the technology must be open and safe for public use. He stated:

“We need to ensure that this technology will be as open, safe, and privacy-respecting as possible. Almost like a brain-operative system.”

Meanwhile, this development is part of Tether’s broader EVO strategy, which focuses on pioneering projects that redefine and empower humans in the future.

Decentralized AI

Notably, the company is also making giant strides in its AI development, with Ardoino recently revealing that the firm is looking to challenge the dominance of technology giants like Microsoft and Amazon.

According to him, AI technology is becoming heavily politicized, and an independent player like Tether will be crucial to the industry’s growth.

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Tether’s (USDT) stablecoin has reached a historic milestone of exceeding $115 billion in supply, according to an Aug. 8 post by CEO Paolo Ardoino on social media platform X.

CryptoSlate data shows that USDT’s market capitalization grew by more than $1 billion in the past week. This surge coincided with Bitcoin’s price rebound to $62,000 after dipping to $49,000.

Blockchain analyst Lookonchain reported that $1.3 billion worth of USDT was moved to several centralized exchanges, including Kraken, OKX, Coinbase, and Bullish, amid the broader crypto market uptrend since Aug. 5.

This achievement has increased USDT’s dominance in the stablecoin market to approximately 70%. Data from Tether’s transparency page showed that over 50% of Tether’s supply is on Tron, while around 41% is on Ethereum.

Compliance and expansion

Meanwhile, Ardoino told Bloomberg on Aug. 8 that the company plans to expand its workforce to 200 by mid-2025, with a strong emphasis on enhancing its compliance team.

Ardoino highlighted the company’s commitment to mitigating illicit activities related to its stablecoin on secondary markets.

Over the past year, Tether has faced increased scrutiny over the potential misuse of USDT by sanctioned entities and malicious actors. The company, however, has continued to publicly maintain that it is strengthening its compliance efforts by cooperating with authorities.

Despite having a smaller workforce than other tech and crypto giants, Tether reported record profits of $5.2 billion in the first half of 2024.

Crypto education initiatives

In a parallel development, Tether is also advancing blockchain education through a partnership with the Africa Blockchain Institute.

This collaboration aims to educate students across five Ivory Coast universities —including Université Alassane Ouattara, Université d’Abobo-Adjamé, Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny, and Institut National Polytechnique Félix Houphouët-Boigny— about blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, DeFi, and industry applications.

Ardoino stressed the importance of this initiative, noting the growing interest in crypto across Africa and its increasing relevance in daily life. He added:

“Tether is committed to providing the next generation of Ivory Coast and African leaders with the skills and understanding needed to excel in the digital economy. We believe It is essential that people have the required knowledge to make informed decisions.”

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Tether’s USDT supply is growing at its fastest rate on the Telegram-linked The Open Network (TON) blockchain.

According to Tether’s transparency page, the stablecoin issuer has issued $580 million worth of USDT tokens on the blockchain, and its net circulation sits at $519 million as of press time. This milestone comes less than two months after Tether issued its USDT stablecoin on the network.

Why Tether USDT is growing on TON

TON stated that the growth was due to the ease of performing transactions on its network. It stated:

“Sending digital dollars to anyone, anywhere, as easily as sending a text message is a reality for people all over the world. What’s more real than that?”

Market analysts also pointed out that USDT’s supply increase on TON could be linked to the significant investors’ interest in the blockchain ecosystem. Over the past month, TON has experienced considerable growth, with the network flipping the number of daily active addresses on the more storied Ethereum blockchain.

Additionally, Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, recently enabled support for TON’s USDT on its platform. This move has drastically expanded the crypto community’s access to the stablecoin on the blockchain network.

Tether scrutiny

While USDT’s growth coincides with the overall expansion of the TON ecosystem, a Consumer Research group in the US is now scrutinizing Tether.

On June 25, Fox Business journalist Eleanor Terret reported that Consumers Research, a US consumer advocacy group, recently intensified its efforts against the stablecoin issuer by distributing flyers about it to several lawmakers’ offices in Washington, DC.

The flyers accuse Tether of being involved in fraud investigations, terrorist financing, and having close ties with China. Part of the flyer reads:

“Tether’s shady business practices put consumers’ money at risk, while allowing bad actors to fund their illicit activities across the globe.”

As of press time, Tether has yet to respond to CryptoSlate’s request for comment. However, Tether CEO recently told CryptoSlate that the FUD against it is seemingly neverending and that he realizes the company may have been naive in believing it “could just keep our head down, work, and if we were proving that we were doing good to the world and that we were useful, all the FUD would go away eventually, right?”

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The Polkadot community wants to establish the blockchain network as a leader in stablecoin payments with a new proposal to boost adoption.

The proposal, which received unanimous community support, seeks to reduce the minimum balance for Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) on the Polkadot Asset Hub to $0.01 from $0.07.

The community argued that this move would drastically boost Polkadot’s attractiveness to stablecoin users. However, the blockchain would still have to implement additional upgrades, like cutting transaction fees on Asset Hub by approximately 90% and implementing sub-1 block times on the network, to achieve its stablecoin payment goals.

The proposal stated:

“[These upgrades] together with super-apps such as Telenova, could make AssetHub (and therefore Polkadot) the home of cheap, fast & more importantly stable/ reliable stablecoin transfers — and serve as a perfect case study demonstrating the power of building on Polkadot.”

Nonetheless, community members agreed that the current proposal was a good start towards making Polkadot competitive against other blockchain networks that deal with remittances.

Stablecoins driving crypto adoption

Stablecoins have emerged as one of the most successful applications of crypto technology in the real world, especially in emerging markets like Nigeria.

Typically, stablecoins are pegged to the US dollar and designed to offer a stable alternative to volatile digital assets like Bitcoin and crypto users in struggling economies tend to use them to hedge against their falling national currencies and as a payment method for goods and services.

Market experts have predicted a strong demand for stablecoins, with Ripple forecasting the market to surpass $2.8 trillion by 2028. This growth has significantly boosted the adoption of blockchain networks like Solana, Tron, and Ethereum, which account for 87% of the $162 billion stablecoin market.

Blockchain analyst Lookonchain recently highlighted that Tether’s USDT on the TRON network achieved a 24-hour trading volume of $53 billion, outpacing Visa’s average daily volume of $42 billion during the year’s first quarter.

Moreover, PayPal expanded its PYUSD stablecoin to the Solana blockchain, citing the network’s lower transaction fees and faster processing times as critical advantages.

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Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino revealed that the company would launch a new class of digital asset products on June 17.

He wrote on social media platform X:

“After a year of hard work, Tether will unveil its new class of digital assets products on Monday 17th June.”

While specific details about these products are still under wraps, the move reflects Tether’s expanding influence and ambitions in the financial sector. In May, Ardoino hinted at the company’s plans to emulate USDT’s success by eliminating monopolistic intermediaries in financial markets.

At the time, he disclosed plans for a peer-to-peer financial markets terminal utilizing Holepunch technology. He said:

“Tether might put significant resources to build a P2P financial markets terminal, based on Holepunch tech. As humanity is enjoying getting rid of monopolistic intermediaries for payments, we could also enjoy the same result in financial markets data infrastructure.”

Tether has yet to respond to CryptoSlate’s request for comment as of press time.

Tether’s diversification

Over the past year, Tether has intensified its diversification efforts beyond its USDT stablecoin product. The company has restructured its operations into four distinct sectors, including finance, data, education, and power.

These restructuring efforts aim to enhance its USDT distribution network and invest in ventures such as AI and Bitcoin mining.

Ardoino emphasized the company’s commitment to this strategy, announcing plans to invest over $1 billion in various deals within the next year. He reportedly said:

“It’s all about investing in technology that helps with disintermediation with traditional finance. Less reliance on the big tech companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft.”

Meanwhile, these diversification efforts coincide with Tether’s improved finances. In its first-quarter report, the company generated substantial profits of more than $4 billion, with its USDT stablecoin accounting for around 70% of the market.

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Stablecoin issuer Tether has entered into an agreement to acquire up to $150 million worth of shares from prominent Bitcoin mining firm Bitdeer via a private placement deal, according to a May 31 statement.

Under the agreement, Tether has acquired 18,587,360 Class A ordinary shares from the BTC miner for $100 million. It could purchase up to 5,000,000 additional shares at $10.00 per share, translating to an extra $50 million. Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. acted as the private placement agent.

Following the news, Bitdeer shares jumped over 8% at pre-market trading to $6.35 as of press time, according to Google Finance data.

Bitdeer to fund expansion

The Singapore-based company intends to use the net proceeds from this investment to fund its data center expansion, ASIC-based mining rig development, working capital, and other general corporate purposes.

Bitdeer’s chief business officer, Linghui Kong, said:

“With Tether’s support, we are poised to accelerate our growth and continue our leadership in sustainable and efficient bitcoin mining. This partnership marks a significant milestone for Bitdeer, and we look forward to achieving great things together.”

Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, added:

“Bitdeer’s proven track record and world-class management team are perfectly aligned with Tether’s long-term strategic vision. We anticipate close collaboration with Bitdeer across several key infrastructure areas moving forward.”

Tether’s growing businesses

This latest venture marks Tether’s ongoing push into the crypto mining sector, following a significant capital investment in Swan’s Managed Bitcoin Mining service.

In Apil, Tether revealed it was splitting into four divisions—Tether Data, Tether Finance, Tether Power, and Tether Edu—to reflect its broader interest in developing the emerging industry. The company revealed that this move aimed to broaden its influence and diversify beyond its core stablecoin operations.

Meanwhile, these diversification efforts coincide with Tether’s record financial performance. During the first quarter, the company posted substantial profits, with its USDT market capitalization rising to a new high of $111 billion, accounting for 77% of the top 10 stablecoins trading volumes on centralized exchanges, according to CCData.

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