Cryptocurrency News Today – according to reports making rounds in the digital currency sector, the stablecoin Tether (USDT) has now surpassed XRP in terms of market cap. This means Tether has become the number three largest digital currency by market capitalization. This comes only hours to the long-awaited Bitcoin halving event.

Tether Now Has a Market Cap of $8.79 Billion

With an overall market cap of $8.79 billion, Tether’s market cap is now bigger than that of XRP. XRP’s market cap is roughly $8.6 billion. The USDT token is currently second to Ethereum as the largest crypto in the market. This increase in market cap comes as a result of the regular increase in Tether’s supply. The majority of USDT tokens circulate on Ethereum’s Blockchain.

There has been a large inflow of USDT into exchanges recently as we approach the Bitcoin halving event. While it is a normal phenomenon for exchanges to hold huge amounts of Tether, especially ahead of a halving event, it can be considered as a bullish signal for the king cryptocurrency Bitcoin. This is because investors are believed to be preparing to purchase cryptos with their USDT.

According to Brian Quinlivan, the marketing and social media director at Santiment a crypto data providing firm:

“Most USDT is taken off exchanges and stored in wallets. It is also cashed out through FIAT-based platforms like Coinbase. When people are not using USDT, they often put it in BTC. And the good thing here is that the USDT percentage typically fluctuates hours or days before BTC’s price reacts to it.”

Tether dwarfs other stablecoins

Tether dwarfs other stablecoins based on market capitalization, and trading volume, even users too along with every other metric used to measure the asset class. Tether has expanded beyond the USD and launched stablecoin’s pegged to China’s yuan, the euro, and gold. Other stablecoins including PAX, USDC, and TUSD are far behind.

USDC has a total market cap of $707.64 million. USDT is the most renowned BTC pair. It comprises of an overwhelming majority. That is 74% of the Bitcoin traded with fiat or stablecoins as of April 2020. But, despite the impressive level of Tether’s growth, other stablecoins including USDC and PAX are growing in popularity. They have consistently captured some bits of market share. Both of them now represent about 4% of the BTC to stablecoin volume overall. No matter the growth rate of the other stablecoins, the BTC/USDT trading pair still represents over 90% of the entire BTC traded in stablecoins at press time