Tether's Dominance: Separating Medium from Message
When looking at market dashboards and sorting by 24-hour volume, one might notice that Tether (USDT) often tops the list, even surpassing Bitcoin. In fact, according to recent data, USDT traded around $31.4 billion in a single day, while Bitcoin's volume was only about $20.3 billion.
This phenomenon is not due to high demand for Tether itself but rather because it serves as the primary medium of exchange in the crypto market. Most trading pairs are quoted against USDT instead of dollars, which means that every time a trader buys or sells an asset, USDT gets counted as volume.
Furthermore, bots and arbitrage systems constantly move stablecoins between exchanges to exploit tiny price differences, adding to the overall volume numbers. This infrastructure movement is often mistaken for genuine economic activity, inflating the reported volume figures.