Swap USDT at the Best Rate

What is USDT?

USDT is a centrally issued claim, not an algorithmic or crypto-collateralized token. Tether mints USDT when a verified customer sends dollars and burns it on redemption, and the token's price stays close to a dollar because that mint and redeem window exists. Holding USDT is holding an obligation of the issuer.

The token launched in 2014 on Bitcoin's Omni Layer under the name Realcoin and moved onto Ethereum in November 2017, where the contract at 0xdac17f958d2ee523a2206206994597c13d831ec7 uses six decimals rather than the usual eighteen. Tether now issues USDT on more than a dozen networks.

How USDT works

Only Tether can create or destroy USDT. Corporate customers who pass onboarding wire dollars to the issuer and receive newly minted tokens; everyone else buys the token on the open market, where the price holds near a dollar because arbitrageurs can redeem at par. Redemption is a direct-customer facility, not something a retail wallet can call.

Reserves are reported quarterly. The attestation for 31 March 2026, prepared by BDO for Tether International, S.A. de C.V., put total reserve assets at 191.77 billion dollars against 183.44 billion dollars of issued-token liabilities, an excess of 8.23 billion dollars. Around 141 billion dollars of that was direct or indirect exposure to US Treasury bills, with the rest in repurchase agreements, gold, bitcoin, secured loans and other investments.

USDT supply and tokenomics

USDT has no fixed supply, no schedule and no burn mechanism tied to usage: the amount in circulation is whatever has been minted and not yet redeemed, so it tracks demand for dollar liquidity on-chain. Supply is also split across networks, and the split moves. By March 2026 the USDT supply on Tron had passed the amount issued on Ethereum for the first time.

Because supply expands on demand, USDT is not scarce by design. The number that matters for a holder is not the total issued but whether reserves cover it, which is what the quarterly attestation reports.

Who builds USDT

Tether is a private company rather than a foundation or a DAO, and it shares management history with the Bitfinex exchange. Reserve reporting is prepared by BDO, a global accounting firm, as a point-in-time attestation over figures the company supplies. An attestation is narrower than a full financial audit, and the reports say so.

Tether also runs enforcement work with partners: the T3 Financial Crime Unit, formed with Tron and TRM Labs, has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars of USDT tied to illicit activity.

How USDT is governed

There is no token-holder governance. Tether sets the terms of service, decides who can mint and redeem, chooses the reserve composition, and can add an address to a blocklist that stops it from moving tokens. The Ethereum contract also includes an owner-controlled transfer-fee parameter, which has never been switched on.

What people use USDT for

Most USDT activity is people parking or moving dollars on-chain rather than expressing a view on the token itself, which is why it shows up on both sides of so many trades.

• Quote asset for spot pairs on centralized and decentralized venues.
• Dollar leg for cross-border payments and remittances, especially on low-fee networks.
• Collateral and borrowing asset in lending markets.
• Holding dollars between trades without moving back to a bank.

USDT risks and considerations

USDT concentrates issuer risk. The peg depends on Tether honoring redemptions and on reserves that include gold, bitcoin and secured loans as well as Treasury bills, so it is not a pure cash instrument. Attestations are quarterly snapshots, not continuous assurance.

The blocklist means a holder's tokens can be frozen without any action of their own, and regulatory treatment differs by region: USDT was delisted from EU venues that require MiCA authorization. Tokens branded USDT on other networks are issued or bridged separately, so check the contract address for the network you are using.