$60 million worth of Tether (USDT) has already been issued on The Open Network (TON) since it began supporting the blockchain on April 19, making it the 11th-largest blockchain for Tether out of 16.
On April 19, the stablecoin issuer announced a collaboration with the TON Foundation at the Token2049 crypto conference in Dubai that would see Tether begin to be minted on TON.
The firm also revealed it has launched the gold-pegged Tether Gold (XAUT) stablecoin on TON as well.
The Open Network team said that cross-border payments were instant, free and as easy as sending a text message to Telegram’s 900 million users in a post on X.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino commented in a post on X on April 21 that Tether had made a “great start” with $35 million USDT issued on TON.
However, according to the Tether Transparency report, the authorized supply issued on TON has grown to $60 million as of 11:30 pm UTC on April 21.
The collaboration allows Telegram’s users to send transfers freely and instantly among all platform users. “All you need to do is send a DM [direct message], no need for a blockchain address, and no need to download a new app,” the messaging company stated.
USDT on TON will be accompanied by fully integrated on-ramps from most fiat currencies globally at launch, it added before stating that soon, integrated global off-ramps will enable users to withdraw supported fiat currencies directly to bank accounts or cards.
However, the majority of Tether’s $109.8 billion circulating supply is on the Tron network, which has $57.8 billion. Ethereum has $51 billion USDT in circulation, a number that has been dwindling as more Tether is deployed on different blockchains to alleviate high network fees on Ethereum.
Solana is the third-largest network supporting Tether with $1.9 billion issued. The stablecoin has also been issued on Avalanche, Omni, Cosmos, Tezos, Near, EOS and Celo, among others.
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Tether has a market share of 69% of the entire stablecoin market capitalization, which is around $159.5 billion, according to CoinGecko.
Its closest rival, Circle, has a share of 21% for its stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), of which there are $33.7 billion in circulation.
Toncoin (TON) prices reacted to the announcement with a 22% spike but quickly returned to previous levels. The asset is trading down 1.6% on the day at $6.13 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko.
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