The issuer of the largest stablecoin by market cap is announcing the launch of the dollar-pegged crypto asset on Ethereum (ETH) challenger Polkadot (DOT).
In a new company blog post, USDT issuer Tether says the top stablecoin is now available on the Polkadot blockchain as a means of increasing its presence in decentralized ecosystems.
According to Tether, the launch of USDT on Polkadot will alleviate the possible negative impacts of market volatility on the stablecoin while providing a sound dollar-pegged currency to generate yield and transfer in and out of the blockchain.
Says Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether,
“Polkadot is on a trajectory of growth and evolution this year and we believe Tether’s addition will be essential in helping it continue to thrive.”
USDT is now live on 11 networks including Ethereum and its competitors Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX), Algorand (ALGO) and Near Protocol (NEAR), according to the press release.
Dan Reecer, chief growth officer of Polkadot’s decentralized finance hub Acala (ACA), says the move makes USDT compatible with DOT’s many parachains and decentralized applications (DApps).
“USDT can now be natively minted on Polkadot. Appchains like AcalaNetwork and Centrifuge, and general-purpose EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) chains like MoonbeamNetwork and AstarNetwork, can now integrate native USDT into their parachain and/or DApp ecosystem alongside substrate-native aUSD.”
Tether’s announcement comes as USDT whales and sharks ramp up their activity. According to market intelligence firm Santiment, addresses holding between $100,000 and $10 million have collected nearly $450 million worth of the stablecoin in less than two months.
“As crypto remains volatile as equities brace for further rate hikes, buying power is picking up gradually among large USDT addresses. $100,000 to $10 million valued addresses have added 4.03% more to their bags in the past seven weeks, 1.12% of the total supply.”
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