Tether's stablecoin USAT, launched for the US market, expanded rapidly in April, with its market capitalization exceeding $140 million, a more than 500% increase from the previous month. However, in terms of overall size, this product still lags significantly behind similar tokens offered to US customers by Circle, PayPal, and Ripple.
Its market capitalization rose above $140 million in April.
USAT launched in January of this year and is issued by Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered crypto bank. This product is an important step for Tether to enter the compliant stablecoin market in the United States.
Bo Hines, CEO of Tether USAT, said the recent growth has primarily come from increased institutional demand, with use cases including fund management, settlement processes, and regulated dollar liquidity management.
Still lagging behind several major competitors
Despite its rapid growth, USAT is still much smaller than its major competitors.
- Circle's USDC has a market capitalization of approximately $76 billion.
- The market capitalization of PayPal-related stablecoin PYUSD is approximately $5.5 billion.
- Ripple's RLUSD has a market capitalization of approximately $1.7 billion.
In comparison, USAT's $140 million size is still relatively small. Tether's flagship product, USDT, remains the world's largest USD stablecoin, with a market capitalization of nearly $189 billion.
Competition in the US stablecoin market continues to intensify.
With the total market capitalization of stablecoins surpassing $300 billion, these assets are becoming increasingly integrated into payments and financial infrastructure. The report mentions that the U.S. GENIUS Act establishes a federal-level regulatory framework for dollar-denominated stablecoins and is also prompting banks, fintech companies, and crypto businesses to accelerate the launch of compliant digital dollar products.
Against this backdrop, Tether entered the US domestic market through USAT, aiming to fill gaps in its portfolio of regulated dollar-denominated stablecoins. However, in terms of current market share, USAT is still in the catch-up phase, and the gap with leading products remains significant in the short term.
