Earlier this week, Tether Operations Limited (“Tether”), the company behind the largest stablecoin in the sector, announced that USDT is launching on the NEAR Network (NEAR). With the expansion to the NEAR ecosystem, the USD price-tracking stablecoin is now available on 14 different blockchain platforms.
Key takeaways:
- NEAR is one of the 15 largest decentralized finance (DeFi) networks when accounting for the total value locked (TVL) in dApps running on the platform. Per the latest DeFi Llama’s TVL data, there was $299 million locked on NEAR as of September 13.
- According to a Monday press release, the preponderance of decentralized applications (dApps) on the NEAR blockchain makes it a great option for USDT expansion.
- “The NEAR ecosystem has witnessed historic growth this year and we believe Tether will be essential in helping it continue to thrive,” noted Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino.
- With the addition of the NEAR Network, USDT is now live on 14 crypto platforms, including Algorand, Avalanche, Ethereum, Polygon, Tezos, TRON, and Solana, to name just a few.
- TRON and Ethereum-based USDT account for the vast majority of Tether’s supply, with $33.1 billion and $32.3 billion, respectively. For context, the entire circulating supply of USDT stands at $67.9 billion.
- The price of NEAR, the NEAR network’s native cryptocurrency, hit a monthly high of $5.25 on Monday, following the news of Tether integration.
