Tether (USDT), the most popular stablecoin in the world, is yet again battling Ripple’s XRP for the top three spots. Can USDT maintain the number 3 spot?
Earlier today, the world’s largest stablecoin, Tether, became the third largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, forcing XRP to the fourth spot, according to blockchain analytics firms Messari and Coin Metrics.
Tether overtakes XRP once again
As recently reported, USDT’s market capitalization surged by $1 billion in 7 days, pushing the total to $12 billion. However, according to a tweet by Coin Metric analyst Lucas Nuzzi, the total market capitalization of USDT exceeded $13 billion, surpassing Ripple’s XRP in the process.
Notably, market capitalization refers to the number of tokens multiplied by the price of each coin. However, since Tether is a stablecoin, its price is not likely to fluctuate and the price of a USDT token will always remain $1. The only manner to raise USDT’s market cap is by mintage of new tokens.
This is not the first time for USDT to surpass XRP in market capitalization ranking. Earlier this year, during the March market collapse, Tether concisely took over as the third largest cryptocurrency in the world after exceeding $5 billion in market capitalization.
USDT still growing despite damaging lawsuits
The growth of Tether comes amid a string of lawsuits facing its parent firm, iFinex. Ifinex is also the parent company to popular cryptocurrency exchange platform Bitfinex. Bitfinex is facing charges against fraud for supposedly hiding a loss of $850 million dollars of the commingled client and corporate funds from investors. The lawsuit is led by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Furthermore, Tether is also facing allegations of printing billions of dollars in crypto, and for manipulating the price of BTC back in 2017. Nevertheless, USDT is still growing and is currently occupying the third spot among cryptocurrencies.