USD₮ hit many new highs in Q4 2025:
- A market cap of $187.3B
- The eighth consecutive quarter of 30M+ user growth
- The largest quarterly increase in on-chain wallets holding USD₮
- The highest ever level of monthly active on-chain users
- The highest ever number and value of transfers on-chain
At the same time, the crypto liquidation cascade of 10 October 2025 has meant the stablecoin ecosystem is not growing as fast as it has been. The total crypto market cap declined more than ⅓ between 10 October 2025 and 1 February 2026, while USD₮ has grown 3.5% since then, compared to the second and third largest stablecoins declining by 2.6% and 57% respectively.
The continued growth in USD₮ comes from diverse use cases beyond the crypto market, with the data clearly showing users’ preference for USD₮ as the stablecoin to both store wealth and transact in.
These insights are primarily based on Tether analysis of blockchain data, also known as on-chain data. On-chain data for 75 stablecoins across 15 blockchains is sourced from Chainalysis and Artemis. For ongoing insights into USD₮ visit usdt.network.
Market cap
The market cap of USD₮ increased by $12.4B in Q4 2025 to $187.3B, with month-on-month growth of 4.9% in October before a slower rate of growth in the aftermath of the crypto liquidation cascade of 10 October.
Reserves
Tether’s total reserves increased by $11.7B in Q4 to $192.9B, resulting in net equity (assets greater than liabilities) of $6.3B. Total reserves included 96,184 bitcoin, increasing by 9,850 bitcoin in Q4, and 127.5 metric tons of gold, increasing by 21.9 metric tons in Q4.
Tether’s total exposure to U.S. Treasuries increased by $6.5B in Q4 to $141.6B, making Tether the 18th largest holder of US Treasuries if Tether was a country, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Germany.
Tether added a total of $28.2B of U.S. Treasuries in 2025, making Tether the 7th largest buyer of U.S. Treasuries in the last 12 months compared to countries, buying more than Taiwan and South Korea.
Total users
The total estimated number of USD₮ users increased by 35.2M in Q4 2025 to 534.5M, making Q4 the eighth quarter in a row to add more than 30M users. This estimate includes both users of on-chain wallets (those that have ever received USD₮ and held it for at least 24 hours) and estimates of users that have received USD₮ on centralized services, such as exchanges.
On-chain holders
The number of on-chain holders of USD₮ increased by 14.7M in Q4 to 139.1M, the largest quarterly increase ever. Wallets holding USD₮ accounted for 70.7% of all wallets holding stablecoins. In addition to users holding USD₮ in on-chain wallets, we estimate that over 100 million users also hold USD₮ within centralized services, such as exchanges.
The composition of on-chain holders of USD₮ remained fairly constant with 100% savers (wallets that retain all the USD₮ they receive) at 30.8% of holders, savers (wallets that on average retain less than 100% but more than ⅔ of the USD₮ they receive) at 6.7% of holders, and senders (wallets that on average retain less than ⅔ of the USD₮ they receive) at 62.6% of holders. A greater share of USD₮ wallets are savers or 100% savers compared to all other stablecoins, at 37.5% vs 30%, and 75.1% of stablecoins saver wallets choose USD₮, showing that USD₮ continues to be the stablecoin that is preferred as a store of wealth.
On-chain active users
Monthly active on-chain users (wallets that receive USD₮ at least once in a 30 day rolling window) reached an all-time high of 24.8M on average in the quarter, showing ever greater levels of activity in USD₮. This accounts for 68.4% of all stablecoin monthly active users.
Balances held by type of user
The greatest share of USD₮, 36%, was held in centralized exchanges (CEXs) at the close of Q4, an increase of 2.8 percentage points on the close of Q3. This was in part due to a decrease in USD₮ held in decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) following the 10 October crypto liquidation cascade, with USD₮ held in DEXs & DeFi decreasing by $3B (2 percentage points) in Q4 to $7.1B (3.8% share of USD₮).
The next largest share of USD₮, 33%, is held by savers, of which 17.4% is held by 100% savers and 15.6% by other savers. Savers added $2.9B of USD₮ to their holdings in Q4, bringing their total to $62.1B at the close of Q4. USD₮ attracts not just the most savers, as described earlier, but also the greatest amount of USD value saved, with 59.9% of all value saved in stablecoins, and 77.3% if wallets each holding $10M+ are excluded (which are often cold wallets of exchanges).
Senders held the third largest share of USD₮, at 26.5% at the close of Q4. This share was relatively constant between Q3 and Q4, with senders adding $2.2B of USD₮ to their holdings in Q4, reflecting growing liquidity for transactional use cases of USD₮.
Note that total balances shown here are slightly greater than market cap as balances include USD₮ that is held in Tether Treasuries but not yet issued while market cap only includes USD₮ in net circulation.
USD value transferred on-chain
The USD value transferred on-chain in USD₮ per quarter increased by $248.6B in Q4 to $4.4T, the highest level ever. Of this $4.4T quarterly total, $2.8T (63.6%) was in transactions where USD₮ was the only asset transferred, and $1.6T (36.4%) was in transactions where multiple assets were transferred (typically in DeFi swaps). USD₮ accounted for 65.9% of the value of single-asset transactions involving stablecoins, and 34.6% of the value of multi-asset transactions involving stablecoins. This suggests that USD₮ continues to be the preferred stablecoin to transfer value, while other stablecoins are more used to swap value, often for USD₮.
Number of transfers on-chain
The number of transfers on-chain in USD₮ per quarter increased by 313.1M in Q4 to 2.2B, the highest level ever. Of this 2.2B quarterly total, 1.94B (88.2%) were transfers of less than $1,000 each, 256M (11.6%) were transfers of between $1,000 and $100,000 each, and 4.6M (0.2%) were transfers of more than $100,000 each.
Velocity
The velocity of USD₮, the % of balance sent each day, was 18.2% at the close of Q4, on a seven day moving average basis. This was down from a peak of 51.8% on 5 November, which was driven by a spike in DeFi activity, and similar to levels last seen prior to Q2 2025, when bitcoin price levels were similar. The average velocity of USD₮ in the quarter was 28%, considerably lower than the 151% velocity of the next largest stablecoin by market cap. The relatively low velocity of USD₮ suggests it has a stickier, more stable, user base and, as described below, has a diverse set of use cases.
The velocity of USD₮ naturally varies across its use cases. Users that hold USD₮ for savings have a lower velocity because they typically hold rather than send. 100% savers naturally have zero velocity, while savers had a 4% daily velocity in 2025. Centralized exchanges also have a low on-chain velocity, at 11% daily velocity in 2025, because users both hold USD₮ as savings on exchanges and for trading – but the trading volume, described in the next section, is recorded in a centralized order book rather than on the blockchain. So the USD₮ transferred out of centralized exchanges via the blockchain is low relative to the amount of USD₮ held in them.
The higher velocity use cases of USD₮ are sender wallets, with a 51% daily velocity in 2025, which send USD₮ for a variety of reasons such as payments, remittances, and moving USD₮ between exchanges, and DEXs & DeFi, with a 111% daily velocity in 2025, where the velocity is typically very high because DEX trades are recorded on the blockchain and users may make multiple trades a day, resulting in a velocity of over 100%.
USD₮ has 67% of its market cap in low velocity use cases, and 33% in higher velocity use cases. This mix provides both stability, from low velocity use cases, and liquidity, from high velocity use cases.
Spot market
Spot market trading volumes of USD₮ on centralized exchanges in Q4 was $3.2T, 96.5% of which was with USD₮ as the quote asset and the remainder from other quote assets for USD₮. This was a 5.9% decrease on Q3 as trading volumes declined following the 10 October crypto liquidation cascade. However trading volumes for all other assets decreased by 11.5% vs Q3, so USD₮ increased its overall share of spot market volumes by 1.5 percentage points to 61.5%. There were 14.1B spot trades in USD₮ in Q4, which was 80% of all spot trades in the quarter.
Conclusion
USD₮ hit many new highs in Q4 2025, although growth slowed after the crypto liquidation cascade of 10 October 2025. However, the data shows that the crypto market is not the only driver of USD₮ growth. Users prefer to save in USD₮ vs other stablecoins by a wide margin (USD₮ is 75% of stablecoin saver wallets and 77% of USD value saved in sub-$10M wallets), which provides a stable, low velocity, source of demand.
USD₮ also leads in higher velocity, means-of-exchange use cases, with USD₮ accounting for 65.9% of the value of single-asset transactions involving stablecoins, but only 34.6% of the value of multi-asset transactions involving stablecoins. This suggests that USD₮ continues to be the preferred stablecoin to transfer value, while other stablecoins are more used to swap value, often for USD₮. These higher velocity USD₮ use cases provide liquidity that ensures USD₮ is widely available and accepted.
For ongoing insights into USD₮ visit usdt.network.
VP Economics, Tether
