Although the market is literally a sea of red, with BTC hovering around $71,000 and sentiment locked in extreme fear, Tether USDT continues to trend down hard. In Q4 2025 (October-December), the issuer released its latest BDO-verified attestation, showing that USDT hit record highs even as altcoins bled and the October 10 liquidation cascade wiped out more than a third of the crypto’s total value.
Tether reported that its stablecoin USDT added 35.2 million new users in the fourth quarter.
What can we extrapolate from this information? A simple conclusion is that users and liquidity are not leaving crypto entirely: they are turning to stablecoins as traders attempt to hit a potential market bottom. And USDT is the preferred choice.
USD₮ Q4 2025 Market Report
Learn more:– Attach (@attach) February 4, 2026
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USDT Dominance Reaches New Heights: Tether Records Users, Cap, and On-Chain Activity
USDT’s market cap soared to $187.3 billion, an increase of $12.4 billion in just three months, during one of the toughest quarters in recent memory.
Reserves reached $192.9 billion (+$11.7 billion), generating $6.3 billion in excess equity over liabilities: essentially a big buffer for buybacks. Profits for the full year 2025 topped $10 billion, driven largely by juicy returns on the U.S. Treasury’s huge holdings.
User adoption has gone parabolic: Tether added 35.2 million new users in the fourth quarter alone, bringing the estimated global total to 534.5 million (an eighth consecutive quarter surpassing more than 30 million additions).
On-chain holders (wallets holding USDT ≥24h) climbed to 139.1 million, controlling approximately 70.7% of all stablecoin wallets. The channel’s monthly active users reached a record 24.8 million, securing approximately 68.4% market share. Transfer volume in Q4 reached $4.4 trillion with billions of on-chain transactions. Pure liquidity dominance.
During the October crash, USDT actually rose +3.5%, while its competitors declined or stagnated.
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Reserves Stacked Up for the Long Game: Treasuries, BTC, and Massive Gold Accumulation
On the makeup of the reserves: $141.6 billion in exposure to the U.S. Treasury, which makes Tether one of the top 20 global holders if classified as a country, larger than Saudi Arabia or Germany by some metrics. They also stacked more BTC: 96,184 coins (up from around 9,850 in Q4).
But the real flex is gold: 127.5 physical tonnes (up 21.9 tonnes QoQ), stored in ultra-secure Swiss safes.
This fits into Tether’s broader gold tactics. In addition to supporting USDT reserves for diversification purposes (hedging fiat/debt risks amid dollar skepticism and geopolitical chaos), they are aggressively ramping up purchases of physical gold: $24 billion peak.
XAUT dominates gold-backed tokens (around 60% share), with dedicated support distinct but synergistic with the overall USDT reserve strategy.
Tether’s scale, network effects, remittances from emerging markets and now the diversification of gold keep it undefeated.
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The post Growing In The Chaos: Tether USDT Adds 35.2 Million Users in Q4 appeared first on 99Bitcoins.
