Tether Launches Recovery Tool for Transferring USDT Between Blockchains
Tether now allows users to transfer their USDT across blockchains in case any of the blockchains become unresponsive. As the leading stablecoin issuer, Tether has launched a recovery tool to facilitate the movement of its stablecoin, USDT, across various blockchains. This development comes as USDT’s market capitalization reaches $100 billion. Tether announced the blockchain recovery scheme on March 4th to ensure continued access to USDT amid disruptions affecting any of the multiple blockchain networks used for USDT transactions.
As of March 4th, USDT was present on 14 blockchains, including Tron, Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, Omni, and others, with Tron and Ethereum being the largest blockchains for USDT, accounting for 51% and 43% of all issued USDT, respectively. Despite significant reliance on blockchains like Tron and Ethereum, USDT exists independently of any blockchain, with blockchains merely serving as transfer layers.
To address the risk of a blockchain becoming unresponsive, unreliable, or unusable, Tether has created an official recovery tool that allows users to migrate USDT between blockchains. Users can confirm ownership of their addresses on an unresponsive blockchain and a recipient address on another supported blockchain, and Tether will transfer USDT between them. According to the announcement, affected USDT users can initiate the migration process using a web interface or command-line tools. This process involves signing a cryptographic migration request to verify ownership of Tether tokens, accessible through browser extension wallets like MetaMask and hardware wallets like Ledger or Trezor.
Moreover, a command-line interface allows users to directly input their private key and sign the required message using an open-source script on their local device. The launch of Tether’s recovery tool coincides with USDT breaking a significant market value milestone, reaching $100 billion in market value for the first time on March 4th.
According to CoinGecko, at the time of writing, USDT is the third-largest digital currency by market value, following Bitcoin and Ethereum, with their values at approximately $1.4 trillion and $442 billion, respectively. USDT is also the largest digital currency by daily trading volume, with $132 billion in digital currency transactions and trades using USDT as of March 5th.
