Cryptocurrency prices bounced this week after much weekend and Monday volatility. Bitcoin gained 3.6% to trade at $60,461 at the time of writing, while Ether bounced to trade at around $2,600.
The gains come after USDT stablecoin issuer Tether minted 1 billion tokens on the Tron blockchain. Tether’s minting history has often been seen as bullish for the crypto industry, as these events usually precede market gains.
Crypto trader @Ali_Charts on X noted that Tether was “like the Federal Reserve of crypto.” He noted that the markets tend to gain each time USDT is minted, which was the reaction seen on Monday.
USDT Grows Its Tron Inventory
Data from Tether Transparency shows that the USDT stablecoin has $117 billion tokens in circulation. Out of this amount, $60 billion is on the Tron blockchain, making it the largest network for the stablecoin.
According to data from Artemis, Tron also ranks second in terms of stablecoin transfer volumes. The platform shows that Ethereum is the largest blockchain by stablecoin transfers, with $23 billion, while Tron follows closely with $18 billion.
The stablecoin transfer volumes on Tron have surged by 152% over the past month, coinciding with the network’s growth. Tron’s volumes are three times higher than those of the Solana blockchain.
Tron Network Growth on Meme Coin Mania and DeFi Activity
The Tron network has been abuzz with meme coin activity since the release of SunPump. The meme coin mania could see Tron follow a similar trend as Solana, which soared to record highs on an uptick in meme coin activity.
Tron’s founder, Justin Sun, noted that within eight days of launch, the platform had reached all-time highs in active users, trading volumes, and revenue.
sunpump active users reached an ATH.
sunpump newly created tokens reached an ATH.
sunpump trading volume reached an ATH.
sunpump revenue reached an ATH.
sunpump new dev reached an ATH.
TO THE SUNhttps://t.co/F2C0OsNHhj is only 8 days old. What’s next?
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨(hiring) (@justinsuntron) August 19, 2024
Similar growth has been seen in decentralized finance (DeFi) activity on the Tron blockchain. Data from DeFiLlama shows that the Total Value Locked (TVL) has surged from $6.8 billion to $8.2 billion.
As a result of the Tron network growth, the native token, TRX, has also surged. As reported by ZyCrypto, TRX recently outpaced Cardano in emergence as the 10th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
TRX was trading at $0.15 at the time of writing. The token has been up around 10% in the last week, and its yearly gains are now 100%.
