Despite being a controversial asset whose backing has typically been questioned, Tether [USDT] was the third largest crypto by market cap at press time, with greater than $82 billion to its identify. Including to that, USDT is the lifeblood of not simply the crypto business but additionally the booming DeFi sector.
To that finish, trying on the stablecoin’s flows can inform us extra about what is perhaps happening beneath the flashy floor of the highest exchanges.
I’m just a little tied up right here. . .
Glassnode’s weekly on-chain trade flows revealed that USDT noticed internet flows of greater than $451.8 million. Because of this with USDT returning to the exchanges, traders is perhaps within the temper to do some promoting – or one thing else totally.
🚨 Weekly On-Chain Alternate Movement 🚨#Bitcoin $BTC
➡️ $7.9B in
⬅️ $9.5B out
📉 Web stream: -$1.5B#Ethereum $ETH
➡️ $5.1B in
⬅️ $6.8B out
📉 Web stream: -$1.7B#Tether (ERC20) $USDT
➡️ $4.9B in
⬅️ $4.4B out
📈 Web stream: +$451.8Mhttps://t.co/dk2HbGwhVw— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) April 4, 2022
The metrics will help us map out this development. Since 26 March, the USDT provide held by the highest addresses has sharply fallen. Nevertheless, for the reason that starting of April, there was a small uptick within the USDT share coming again to those wallets.

Supply: Santiment
Now zooming in, we are able to see that the USDT held by the highest trade addresses has been on an uptrend, whereas the provision held by prime non-exchange addresses has fallen by shut to at least one billion. A crossover is clearly going down.

Supply: Santiment
Now, add all of it up
All roads result in Bitcoin. . .or do they? Santiment knowledge revealed that whereas Bitcoin noticed slight corrections, alts didn’t give in to see strain and a number of other prime 100 alt cash noticed weekly rallies.
📈 When #Bitcoin declines, sometimes #altcoins drop alongside the #1 asset in #crypto. Nevertheless, this previous week has been totally different, and #altseason calls are plentiful for a cause. $GMT (+219%), $ZIL (+52%), $WAVES (+45%), and $AAVE (+42%) have led the best way. https://t.co/jzBLPpyovC pic.twitter.com/GhnCaDEDpX
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) April 4, 2022
One doable interpretation is that crypto merchants are shifting their USDT provide out of chilly wallets and into exchanges to be able to store for alts. In flip, it’s doable that the shopping for strain drove up costs, resulting in rallies at the same time as Bitcoin floundered at simply above $46,000.
Could the perfect stablecoin win
So it’s clear that Tether nonetheless has a major position to play within the business as an asset and signaler of exercise. Nevertheless, is there any likelihood of it shedding out to TerraUSD [UST] any time quickly? In spite of everything, Terra reportedly has more than $1 billion in Bitcoin and plans to purchase extra, to create a reserve to again UST.
But, at press time, there was lower than 200 million UST in exchanges, exhibiting that the asset nonetheless has an extended approach to go earlier than difficult USDT’s dominance.

Supply: Santiment