Tether Market Cap Slashed by More Than $10B in May 

image 47 850x405 1

Tether (USDT) lost its peg to the dollar during the steep decline in the prices of cryptocurrencies in May, leading to a substantial drop in the market value of one of the most used stablecoins.

Tether (USDT) remains the largest stablecoin by market capitalization in June 2022. Despite losing its peg, the stablecoin is among the top five digital assets by market capitalization. 

Tether closed the fifth month of the year with a market capitalization in the region of $72.5 billion, according to Be[In]Crypto research.

This was a 12% dip from the market cap on May 1. On that day, USDT saw a trading volume of $61.42 billion, corresponding to a market capitalization of approximately $83.16 billion. 

Source: Historical Data for USDT by CoinMarketCap

Why the decreasing market cap? 

Negative crypto market sentiment led many retail and institutional investors to dump digital assets around May 9. This had a huge impact on the USDT market cap.

Decreased investor interest in May was attributed to unfavorable geopolitical events, a stronger dollar, renewed interest for precious metals such as gold, and interest rate hikes which have led to a rise in the demand for government bonds and bills. 

In May, the number of large transactions involving USDT reached a high of 19,510 at a price of $0.9747 on May 12. 

image 48
Source: USDT Number of Large Transactions Chart by Into the Block

This corresponded with a large transaction volume of 31.8 billion USDT at the same price.

image 49
Source: USDT Transaction Volume in USDT Chart by Into the Block

The transaction volume of 31.8 billion USDT multiplied by $0.9747 equaled $31 billion.

image 50
Source: USDT Transaction Volume in USD Chart by Into the Block

USDT opened on May 12 with a trading price of $0.9959, reached an intraday high of $0.9977, tested an intraday low of $0.9485, and closed the day at $0.9976. 

Trading volume was around $141.05 billion and corresponded to a market capitalization in the region of $81 billion. This was a 2% dip in Tether’s opening day market cap. 

Due to the bearishness of the market intensifying in the last two weeks of the month, USDT could not regain its peg to the dollar for the rest of May. 

USDT price reaction 

USDT opened on May 1, at $1, reached a monthly low of $0.9485 on May 12, and closed the month at a price of $0.9994. 

Overall, this equated to a 0.06% decrease between Tether’s opening and closing price in May.

image 51
Source: USDT/USD Chart by TradingView

Disclaimer

All the information contained on our website is published in good faith and for general information purposes only. Any action the reader takes upon the information found on our website is strictly at their own risk.

Share Article
Raphael Minter

As a writer, researcher, and analyst of centralized and decentralized financial instruments (stocks, commodities, metals, and cryptocurrencies), he started experimenting with financial asset trading in 2011.
He ventured into full-time long term investing of cryptocurrencies in 2016.

Follow Author