Stablecoin issuer Tether has released a blockchain recovery tool for transferring the USDT stablecoin between blockchains after its $100 billion market capitalization.
Tether unveiled a blockchain recovery strategy on March 4 to guarantee consistent access to USDT if any of the numerous blockchain networks utilized for USDT transactions experience disruptions.
According to data from Tether, as of March 4, USDT is present on fourteen blockchains, including Tron, Ethereum, Solanche, Avalanche, and Omni. The USDT’s two major blockchains, Tron and Ethereum, account for 43% and 51% of all issued USDT, respectively.
In contrast to its substantial dependence on blockchains such as Tron and Ethereum, USDT operates “independently of blockchains,” according to the most recent announcement from Tether, which emphasizes that blockchains serve “only as a transport layer.”
Tether has developed its official recovery utility to mitigate the potential for blockchain unreliability, unresponsiveness, or unusability, which enables users to transfer USDT between blockchains. The corporation observed:
“Users would be able to verify ownership of their addresses on an unresponsive blockchain and a recipient address on another supported blockchain, and Tether will transfer the USDT between them.”
As stated in the announcement, users of the impacted USDT can commence the migration procedure by utilizing either the command-line tools or the web interface.
The method entails the cryptographic signature of a migration request to authenticate possession of Tether tokens. Hardware wallets like Ledger or Trezor and browser extension wallets like MetaMask offer access to these tokens.
The announcement notes that a command-line interface also permits users to directly enter their private key, thereby facilitating the signing of the required message through an open-source script on their computer.
Tether’s recovery tool introduction coincided with USDT surpassing a significant market capitalization milestone on March 4, when it surpassed $100 billion for the first time.
According to data from CoinGecko, USDT is the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization at the time of writing, trailing Bitcoin and Ether, valued at $1.4 trillion and $442 billion, respectively.
In contrast, as of March 5, USDT ranks first in daily trading volume among cryptocurrencies, facilitating $132 billion worth of crypto trades and transactions. Following USDT in daily transaction volume are BTC and ETH, with $82 billion and $33 billion in trades, respectively.
