Last week the daily trading volume of the crypto USDT on the Tron network surpassed that of the Visa network.
This is what emerged from an analysis by Lookonchain referring to the data of Thursday, June 20, 2024.
Summary
USDT on Tron: the stablecoin crypto surpasses Visa
For some time now, the majority of transactions in USDT no longer take place on Ethereum, but on Tron.
Tron indeed allows faster transactions but above all significantly more economical.
Although transactions on the Tron network are actually more expensive compared to those on Ethereum’s layer-2, such as Arbitrum or Base, the majority of USDT issued are on Tron, and thus it is on that blockchain where the most exchanges occur.
On Ethereum there are almost 52 billion USDT, while on Tron almost 60. Additionally, many of those on Ethereum need to be moved to be traded on some layer-2, and such a move has a cost. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the end most are transferred to Tron.
Just think that Tron is the second chain in the world for TVL, with 7.7 billion dollars of which the vast majority on only two protocols (JustLend and JustStables).
On BSC, for example, there are 4.8 billion dollars of TVL, distributed across at least seven main protocols.
Therefore, the Tron network is actually used mainly to transact and lend USDT.
Crypto news: The overtaking of USDT on Tron at the expense of Visa
According to data from Lookonchain, the daily trading volume of USDT on the Tron network on June 20 was 53 billion dollars.
Instead, the overall trading volume for the first quarter of 2024 officially declared by Visa was 3.780 billion dollars, from which a daily average of 42 billion can be easily deduced.
So that day the volume of transactions in USDT on the Tron network exceeded the average daily trading volume on the Visa network during the first quarter of the current year.
It should be noted, however, that for example in the last 24 hours the total trading volume of USDT on the Tron network did not exceed 30 billion dollars, so the data from June 20 might just be an exception. However, yesterday was Sunday, so it is very likely that crypto trading volumes were lower compared to Thursday or Friday.
In fact, on Thursday the 20th there was a peak, but during the month of June there were at least two other similar peaks, although lower.
It should be noted, however, that this comparison with Visa is not entirely correct.
In fact, one should compare peaks with peaks, and averages with averages, and not peaks with averages. Therefore, in reality, there has been no true overtaking, but nonetheless the anomalous data of Thursday, June 20 remains very interesting.
Also because in reality USDT is transacted also on Ethereum. But on the other hand USD is transacted also on Mastercard, even if the Visa data mentioned above was calculated in all currencies and worldwide.
The boom of USDT
USDT not only was the first stablecoin to ever be introduced to the crypto markets, but it is also the decidedly dominant one at this moment, and has been for some years now.
On a total market cap of all stablecoins currently amounting to 162 billion dollars, the 112 billion of USDT constitute almost 70% of it. Moreover, in those 162 billion are also included those algorithmic stablecoins that are not really based on USD, but on other crypto assets (such as DAI).
The second stablecoin by market capitalization is USDC with just 32 billion dollars, or just over 28% of USDT (less than a third).
By now the stablecoin sector is literally dominated by USDT, so it is not surprising that it has managed to reach similar milestones.
Just think that out of approximately 60 billion USDT existing on Tron on June 20, 53 billion were transacted, which is a figure that exceeds 88%. In reality, this does not mean that 88% of the USDT tokens present on Tron were moved, but that some were moved well more than once within just 24 hours.
The company Visa
According to the official data published on Visa’s website, in the twelve months from April 2023 to March 2024, the total transaction volumes were 15.3 trillion dollars.
Calculating the daily average confirms the 42 billion dollars revealed by Lookonchain regarding the last full quarter of 2024 (from January to March).
From this comparison, it is clear that over the past 12 months, the average daily trading volumes on the Visa network have remained substantially unchanged.
The fact that on one hand the use of USDT is increasing, up to levels comparable to those of the use of the Visa network worldwide, would suggest that on the other hand the trading volumes on the Visa network should decrease.
This last thing is not happening because most likely the trading volumes in USDT do not concern payments for purchases, as those of Visa do, but more likely transfers of funds in the crypto sector, such as on exchanges or on DeFi protocols.
Therefore, Visa remains the leader worldwide for electronic money payments, all over the world, while USDT is carving out a leading role especially within the crypto world.
