Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, reported in its new report that 109 million on-chain wallets held USDT as of the beginning of the 4th quarter of 2024.
This figure is more than double the number of wallets holding Bitcoin and approaching the 128 million wallets holding Ethereum.
In addition to on-chain activity, centralized platforms have also become a significant part of the USDT ecosystem. Tether reported that 86 million accounts on such platforms have held on-chain USDT deposits. Centralized exchanges recorded 4.5 billion web visits in the first three quarters of 2024, with nearly half (46%) of those visits originating from emerging markets. Many users in these regions primarily use USDT on-platform for holding and trading, but the exact balances are known only to the platforms.
Some interesting data from the report shared by Tether are as follows:
Active wallets: Of the 330 million on-chain accounts that have ever purchased USDT, at least a third (109 million) and likely close to half still hold USDT today.
Reactivation trends: USDT usage is cyclical for many users. Approximately 29% of wallets currently holding less than $0.01 in USDT have been reactivated in the past, typically for recurring payments.
Interestingly, a significant portion of wallets have small balances, with 18.7 million wallets holding more than $0.01 but less than $1 USDT.
USDT continues to dominate the stablecoin space, with four times more wallets than all other stablecoins combined. As of November 1, 54 million on-chain wallets held more than $0.01 in USDT, compared to just 13.8 million wallets for all other stablecoins, a staggering 4:1 ratio.
*This is not investment advice.