Tether mints $5B in USDT on TRON in two-week surge

Tether printed more than $5 billion in USDT on TRON in two weeks because the crypto market needed a huge amount of dollar liquidity at once.

The company added another $1 billion on the network in its latest issuance, taking the recent TRON total to around $5 billion.

In April, Tether created 2 billion USDT on Ethereum in only three days, meaning demand was already rising before the current market recovery became clear.

Bitcoin just rallied above $80,000 for the first time in so long while short sellers were getting liquidated hard. At the same time, institutional buyers took in more than 500% of the daily mined Bitcoin supply.

Tether prints new USDT as traders need more dollars on-chain

When Tether creates new USDT at this size, it usually means large customers have asked for tokens before using them across the market. The tokens can be sent to exchanges for spot buying, to trading desks for settlement, or to DeFi apps for lending, swaps, and collateral.

That matters because traders do not always enter with bank wires at the exact second they want exposure. They often keep USDT ready because it can be sent fast, used around the clock, and moved between venues without waiting for traditional banking rails.

The new $5 billion created on TRON equals about 2.6% of Tether’s current supply. For a stablecoin that already has a massive base, that is still a lot of new issuance in a short period. These big prints have often appeared before long buying periods in crypto, not only after prices have already run.

Tether’s USDT now has a total supply of about $189.5 billion. That gives it a 58.9% share of the full stablecoin market. The entire stablecoin sector reached a record $321 billion in April 2026, up from $310 billion at the start of the year.

That growth came from more demand for dollar tokens used in settlement and collateral. In plain English, crypto users still want digital dollars they can trust enough to park funds in, trade with, and send without bank-hour nonsense.

Tether freezes Tron wallets as USDT grows across payments and enforcement cases

Tether also had a major enforcement case on TRON during the same period. A week ago, the company had to freeze $344 million in USDT across two Tron wallets after working with the Office of Foreign Assets Control and U.S. law enforcement.

The two wallets held about $212.9 million and $131.3 million, and Tether said U.S. officials gave intelligence that linked the wallets to unlawful activity before the freeze happened, so the funds could no longer be sent out.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said, “USD₮ is not a safe haven for illicit activity. When credible links to sanctioned entities or criminal networks are identified, we act immediately and decisively.”

The company has now frozen over $4.4 billion in assets tied to illegal activity since its inception, and allegedly, more than $2.1 billion of that amount is connected to U.S. law enforcement work.

Paolo also said on X today that “USDT processed 3.6 billion transfers under $100 in 2025.”

That detail is important because it shows USDT is not only a whale coin or exchange balance tool. It is also being used for small transfers at a ridiculous scale.

Crypto payment cards are seeing more activity too. Monthly card spending volume has reached $600 million, which is six times higher than one year ago. Total on-chain card transaction value has climbed to $7.2 billion, across 24 million transactions and 1.36 million wallet addresses.

About 62.5% of those card transactions were settled in Tether’s USDT. Around 90% were handled through Visa Inc. (NYSE: V). On-chain data also showed about $348 million in volume from the Solana ecosystem, while Jupiter Global recorded 660% month-on-month growth.

Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.