Methodology

The insights on usd.cool are primarily from Tether analysis of blockchain data, also known as on-chain data. On-chain data across 11 blockchains is sourced from Chainalysis and Artemis.

Insights are also based on data including data on U.S. Treasury holdings, centralized cryptocurrency exchange trade volumes, estimates of users on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges from our partners, and internal data on Tether’s work with law enforcement agencies.

The methodology for the insights are as follows:

• Market cap:
  • Current market cap: the net circulation of USD₮, which is the amount of USD₮ authorized on-chain, less authorized but not issued, less quarantined, as described on Tether’s Transparency page.
  • Trend in market cap: the net circulation of USD₮ on most blockchains, as provided by Artemis.
• Daily transfer volume: the USD value of USD₮ transferred via the blockchain in a UTC day, removing transfers internal to addresses controlled by an entity on blockchains where addresses are clustered.
• Number of USD₮ transfers per day: the number of USD₮ transfers via the blockchain in a UTC day, removing transfers internal to addresses controlled by an entity on blockchains where addresses are clustered. Note that a transfer is between two distinct entities, in contrast to a transaction, which can bundle together many transfers.
• Total users: the estimated number of USD₮ users includes both on-chain and off-chain users:
  • On-chain users: the number of wallets and deposit addresses on services that have ever received USD₮, less wallets that hold USD₮ for less than 24 hours.
  • Off-chain users: the number of users of USD₮ on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, estimated at 120 million at the end of 2024, and assumed to grow in line with on-chain users from the start of 2017, and grow in line with, but a lower rate than, on-chain users in 2025.
• Weekly active on-chain users: the number of distinct on-chain wallets and deposit addresses on services that receive at least one transfer of USD₮ in a seven day window, less wallets that hold USD₮ for less than 24 hours.
• On-chain users holding more than $1: the number of wallets holding more than one USD₮.
• Percentage of USD₮ supply held by savers: the percentage of the market cap of USD₮ held in wallets or services that historically on average send one third or less of the USD₮ they receive. This is currently only calculated for USD₮ on Ethereum and Tron, which accounted for 97% of the USD₮ market cap as of 28 February 2025.
• Tether’s U.S. Treasuries holdings: direct holding of U.S. Treasury bills, plus the fair value of U.S. Treasury bills exposure in money market funds, plus the fair value of U.S. Treasury bills collateralizing the exposure of overnight reverse repurchase agreements, as presented in our Independent Auditors’ Reserves Report, accessible at Tether’s Transparency page.
• Rank of U.S. Treasuries holdings if USD₮ was a country: the rank of Tether’s U.S. Treasuries holdings relative to the holdings of countries listed in the US Treasury's Table 5: Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities.
• Fees: fees are the on-chain fees paid to make a transfer on the blockchain. This does not include other types of fees that users can incur, such as exchange fees or currency conversion fees. On-chain fees are typically paid in the native asset of the blockchain and paid per transaction rather than transfer. So on-chain USD₮ fees per transfer are estimated by multiplying the USD value of the fee per transaction by the number of USD₮ transfers as a percentage of all the transfers across all assets in the transaction. Fees are presented in the following ways:
  • Average fee to send up to $500: total fees on transfers of up to $500 of USD₮ per day divided by the total number of transfers of up to $500 of USD₮ per day.
  • Average fee per transfer: total fees per day as a percentage of total transfer volume per day.
  • Average transfer fee by chain: total fees per day divided by the total number of transfers per day per blockchain.
• USD₮’s share of centralized and decentralized spot market volumes: the USD value of trades where USD₮ is either the quote or base asset as a percentage of the total USD value of trades on exchanges, separately for centralized and decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges.

The sources of data are as follows:

• Chainalysis provides data on the following blockchains: Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, BSC, Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon, Solana, Tron. This blockchain data is clustered, so that where possible addresses are grouped by the entity that controls them and internal transfers are removed, providing more accurate data. Clustering changes over time so historical values can change.
• Artemis provides data on the following blockchains: Celo and TON. This blockchain data is analysed on addresses rather than clusters of addresses.
• Artemis also provides data on market cap across most blockchains, and decentralized exchange spot market volumes on the following blockchains: Arbitrum, Base, BSC, Ethereum, and Solana.
• Kaiko provides data on centralized cryptocurrency exchange trade volumes across most exchanges.

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Insight summary

Insights are updated regularly, with the date of last update available in the table below. This is the date at which the value presented occurred. The table also describes the type of transformation applied to the data. Most insights are a 30 day average. For example the Daily transfer volume last updated on 1 February 2025 would represent the 30 day average of daily transfer volume on 1 February 2025.