What is USDT?

What USDT Is and Who Issues It

USDT is a US dollar stablecoin, and Tether issues it. A stablecoin is a token on a blockchain that tracks the value of a regular currency instead of floating like bitcoin. Tether writes the ticker as USD₮, and its Ethereum contract carries the name Tether USD on Etherscan.⁶

Tether says it launched in 2014 and that every token is pegged 1-to-1 to the US dollar and backed 100% by its reserves.¹ Those reserves, by Tether's own description, include traditional currency, cash equivalents and other assets, including receivables from loans Tether has made to third parties.

New USDT only comes into existence when a customer who has passed Tether's identity checks asks for it and pays for it, according to Tether's description of how its tokens work. Everyone else gets USDT on the open market: from an exchange, a swap or another person. The other Tether tokens, for the Mexican peso and for gold, are covered on the stablecoins hub.

How USDT Keeps Its Dollar Value

USDT keeps its dollar value through Tether's backing: Tether says each token is pegged 1-to-1 to the US dollar and covered by its reserves. The market price still moves a little around that dollar during the day. CoinGecko lists USDT at $0.9991 at this check.

Tether publishes two numbers that let anyone compare the promise with the books. Tokens in circulation are typically updated daily, and information about the reserves is typically published quarterly, both on Tether's transparency page.¹ Tether's own wording is that the platform is fully reserved when the tokens in circulation are worth less than or equal to the reserves.

Onchain Wiki does not grade those reserves. The page shows what Tether says, where it says it, and the supply that blockchains show today.

USDT Supply by Network Today

USDT supply today is $176.8 billion, and two networks hold most of it: Tron with $92.2 billion and Ethereum with $67.6 billion. The table counts USDT on each chain as DefiLlama tracks it at this check.⁴

DefiLlama also counts USDT on BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum and Polygon. Tether's supported protocols page does not list a USDT contract on any of those three, so the USDT there is not a contract Tether lists itself. The BEP20 page explains who stands behind the BNB Smart Chain version.

USDT Contract Addresses From Tether's List

USDT contract addresses differ on every network, and Tether publishes the official ones on its supported protocols page. A token with the same name at a different address is not Tether's USDT, so check the full address before adding a token to a wallet.

Tether adds one note for developers: its Ethereum USDT contract follows an older ERC20 standard whose transfer function does not return a true or false value, so Tether tells anyone writing their own contracts to use the SafeERC20 library.

Sending USDT on the Right Network

Sending USDT on the right network means the sender and the receiver pick the same blockchain. A Tron address and an Ethereum address belong to different systems, and Tether's FAQ warns that anyone sending its tokens must check the destination address and choose the correct transport protocol. Before any transfer:

• Ask which network the receiving wallet or exchange supports for USDT, and pick that one.
• Check that the address format matches: Tron addresses start with T, Ethereum addresses start with 0x.
• Hold the network's own coin for the fee: TRX on Tron, ETH on Ethereum, SOL on Solana.
• Send a small test amount first when the address is new to you.

Fees and speed differ a lot between networks. The USDT networks comparison shows today's typical cost on each, and the TRC20 explainer covers the Tron format most exchanges offer.

USDT Compared With USDC

USDT and USDC are both US dollar stablecoins, but Tether issues USDT and Circle issues USDC. Circle says USDC is fully backed and redeemable 1:1 and that it reports reserves weekly, against the quarterly reserve reports Tether describes.⁷

By size, USDT is the bigger of the two at this check: $176.8 billion of USDT against $70.5 billion of USDC, according to DefiLlama. Together they make up most of the $294.6 billion in dollar stablecoins that DefiLlama tracks. The USDT dominance chart shows USDT's share of the whole crypto market over time.

Where USDT Started: Omni and the Retired Networks

USDT started on the Bitcoin network through the Omni Layer, and Tether has since retired it there. Tether says it no longer issues tokens, and is no longer obligated to redeem them, on Kusama, Bitcoin Cash SLP, Omni Layer, EOS and Algorand, and keeps those entries on its list for history only.

Ethereum came next as an ERC20 token, and Tron followed. Tether now treats one token on any supported chain as equal to one token on any other, and it asks exchanges and apps to state plainly which networks they support. Tether has also wound down its euro token, EURT, and says that from February 20, 2027 it will no longer be obligated to redeem its offshore yuan token, CNHT.

Questions People Ask About What is USDT

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Sources

Every number on this page comes from these sources, checked November 9, 2026.

1. tether.to/en/faqs
2. tether.to/en/how-it-works
3. tether.to/en/transparency
4. defillama.com/stablecoin/tether
5. tether.to/en/supported-protocols
6. etherscan.io/token/0xdac17f958d2ee523a2206206994597c13d831ec7
7. circle.com/usdc