Nearly 12% of All Tether Is Now on Tron After $100M Chain Swap

The amount of Tether (USDT) tokens issued on the Tron (TRX) blockchain now accounts for nearly 12% of all USDT tokens.

350 million to 450 million in one day

Launched in mid-April 2019, TRC20-based USDT has hit a total supply of over 490 million tokens on Oct. 25, which now makes up almost 12% of the 4.1 million Tether tokens currently in circulation, according to data on Tronscan.

TRC20-based USDT on Tronscan

The new total supply milestone resulted following the addition of 100 million new TRC20-based USDT tokens, as the Tron Foundation confirmed on Oct. 25.

More 40 million USDT from a new swap

Subsequently tracking service Whale Alert reported another large transaction of TRC20-based USDT on Oct. 25. It noted that 40 million new USDT ($40.2 million) was minted at Tether Treasury. 

Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino elaborated that the transaction is a result of a chain swap from Ethereum’s ERC-20 tokens to Tron.

A chain swap is a process that moves cryptocurrencies from one blockchain to another. As Tether specified:

“This process allows traders to obtain access to the various blockchains that support the cryptocurrency that they are holding, thereby enabling the use of their digital assets on these other supporting blockchains.”

In mid-September, Tether minted 300 million USDT in a swap from the Bitcoin (BTC)-based tokenization protocol Omni to Ethereum.

Before launching TRC20-based USDT on April 16, Tron and Tether first announced their partnership for the initiative in early March 2019.