Tether's USDT supply fell by $4.6 billion across 19 selected exchanges and lenders in Q3, while those institutions added competing tokens such as USDC and RLUSD. Rival issuers are paying for distribution, yet USDT still carries 84% of classified stablecoin payments.
Tether lost $4.6 billion in USDT supply across 19 selected cryptocurrency exchanges and lenders during the third quarter. During the same period, those institutions added approximately $1.9 billion in competing tokens, including $569 million of USDC and $493 million of Ripple's RLUSD.
According to a Crystal Intelligence report, Bybit shed $1.66 billion in USDT while adding $315 million of RLUSD. Binance reduced its Tether holdings by $987 million, and OKX cut $899 million in USDT.
Exchanges earn income from stablecoin deposits
The contest is most visible in derivatives markets, where stablecoins serve as trading collateral and can generate additional income for platforms that hold customer deposits. Hyperliquid recorded a $1.5 billion increase in USDC deposits, bringing its holdings to approximately $7.2 billion.
The growth coincided with an arrangement under which Coinbase shares most of the reserve-linked income with Hyperliquid. Deribit took a different route and added $365 million in USDC while rewarding customers directly for maintaining USDC balances.
The deals are costly for issuers. Circle generated about $1.4 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026 but spent $819 million, or 59% of that amount, on distribution and transaction costs. That left about $103 million in net profit.
Tether keeps its lead in payments
Even so, a separate Allium report estimated that stablecoins processed $482 billion in classified payments between January and September, with USDT accounting for 84% of the total. That equals approximately $405 billion in USDT payment value, compared with $77 billion across competing stablecoins.
Across the wider market, USDT's circulating supply fell $647 million, or 0.4%, to about $184 billion, while RLUSD rose 59% to $2.5 billion.
Winning exchange deposits takes financial incentives, but expanding payment usage requires adoption by wallets, merchants and businesses moving money.
Source: CryptoSlate
Trading involves risk.
Risk Disclaimer
