Tron Loses 23% of Its $4.3B USDT Reserves to DeFi Hotbed Ethereum
The chain swap happened early Thursday morning. (Shutterstock)
Stablecoin issuer Tether shifted 1 billion in USDT from the Tron blockchain to the Ethereum blockchain in an early morning chain swap Thursday.
- Swapped in conjunction “with a 3rd party,” according to a Tether tweet, the token transfer drains 23% of TRON’s USDT reserves, which previously stocked $4.3 billion in the stablecoin.
- It also pumps up Ethereum’s reserves, where well over half of the nearly $13 billion circulating USDT already reside. Ethereum is a hotbed for decentralized finance projects and as such a popular spot for USDT.
- Tether has played a notable role in the Ethereum blockchain’s recent congestion, according to Decrypt.
- Big-dollar USDT transfers and billion-token burns spotted by the exchange-tracking Twitter account Whale Alert suggest that Binance may be the third party that ordered the swap.
Disclosure
The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.