Tether Limited, the issuer of the USD-pegged USDT cryptocurrency, has destroyed 500 million units of the embattled stablecoin.
Blockchain data reveals that earlier today, the firm transferred 500 million USDT from the token’s treasury address to this address, which the firm’s website indicates is the official USDT issuing address. Immediately following that transaction’s confirmation, the issuing address revoked the tokens, not only removing them from circulation (as tokens within the treasury are not counted as circulating) but also — once the transaction is confirmed — destroying them completely.
As CCN reported, USDT’s market cap has plunged in October, primarily because token holders have redeemed nearly 800 million USDT since the beginning of the month. Following these redemptions, nearly 1 billion tokens were sitting in the treasury where they remained on-chain but out of circulation. At the time of writing, the treasury continued to hold approximately 467 million USDT.
Update 17:29 UTC: Tether published a statement confirming that the tokens have been destroyed:
“Over the course of the past week, Tether has redeemed a significant amount of USDT from the circulating supply of tokens. In line with this, Tether will destroy 500m USDT from the Tether treasury wallet and will leave the remaining USDT (approx 466m) in the wallet as a preparatory measures for future USDT issuances.
“Conceptually, the Tether issuance and redemption process is outlined in the Tether whitepaper, with issuances and redemptions visible through observing the Tether treasury balance on the OMNI blockchain.”
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