According to a recent study published by independent cryptocurrency store Protos, two companies are responsible for purchasing two-thirds of Tether’s total supply in USDT since its inception.
The organizations, Alameda Research and Cumberland Global, had so far been the recipients of at least $60.3 billion USDT out of the $108.5 billion of Tether’s outbound transfers between 2014 and October 31, 2021, the report said.
The majority of the volume, representing $ 49.2 billion USDT (60% of Tether’s total supply), was acquired in 2020 alone, indicating the period when interest in cryptocurrencies increased significantly.
However, the companies’ closest competitors in terms of receiving USDT from Tether’s treasuries, such as Binance, Bitfinex, Nexo Finance, among others, also received a few hundred million USDT during the time.
Market makers rake in profits by providing the dollar backed stablecoins to centralized exchanges, such as Binance, Huobi, FTX, Poloniex, etc., providing liquidity for their various USDT trading pairs.
Alameda Research Leads
Interestingly, between Alameda Research and Cumberland Global, the former leads the way as the single entity that has received the highest USDT supply.
Alameda Research, founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, 29, in 2017, acquired USDT 36.7 billion, representing almost a third of the stablecoin that has been minted to date. Interestingly, $31.7 billion out of the entire amount was received in the last year alone.
Alameda Research is the parent company of the popular FTX cryptocurrency exchange, and the trading platform has been the largest beneficiary of Alameda’s USDT distribution.
According to Protos, Alameda has so far sent nearly $30.1 billion in USDT to FTX, representing 87% of the company’s USDT acquisition.
Alameda also transferred $ 2.1 billion, $ 1.7 billion and $ 115 million in USDT to his accounts on Binance, Huobi and OKEx, respectively, while the remaining $ 705 million was sent to an address. without exchange.
Cumberland Follows
Launched in 2014, Cumberland was founded as a cryptocurrency trading subsidiary of market powerhouse DRW. The company has so far received $ 23.7 billion in USDT from Tether, with $ 17.6 billion acquired in the past year alone.
Out of the total USDT received by Cumberland, $18.7 billion in USDT was sent to Binance, while Poloniex and Bitfinex received $131.5 million and $9 million, respectively.
Huobi and OKEx received a combined $ 30 million from Cumberland, while the remaining $ 4.9 billion was sent to a no-exchange address.
Tether’s Continuous Growth
Tether has continued to grow tremendously, reaching a market capitalization of over $75 billion. The company understands the importance of stable currency in the crypto market and has ensured that cryptocurrency is supported on 14 different blockchains, such as Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche, among others.
Per data from crypto aggregator website CoinGecko, USDT is currently ranked as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
