Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT, is breaking all records in 2023. In its Q1 assurance report, Tether gained an all-time high reserve surplus of $2.44 billion, and a net profit of $1.48 billion

This raised many eyebrows because the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, had only $1.2 billion net income in the same period.

Not only does dollar tokenization pay off but it pays off drastically. This is evidenced by profit efficiency per employee, as BlackRock’s profits are secured by 16,500 – 19,800 personnel vs. Tether’s modest 60 – 155 employee count.

Tether’s latest Q2 assurance report from its accounting firm BDO tells the same story. Its stablecoin reserves increased by $850 million, reaching $3.3 billion. Taken at face value, these reports show that Tether cracked the money-making formula while providing critical USDT stability in extreme market conditions.

How? Tether seemingly discovered a money printer in US treasuries. But is there a risk in Tether’s evolving business model? One that could topple the entire crypto market given Tether’s enormous $83.7 billion market cap weight?

Let’s explore.

Tether: Combining Saylor’s Strategy While Leveraging US Debt

Both Q1 and Q2 reports show Tether’s increased reliance on US treasuries. The latest Q2 attestation accounted for Tether Holdings Limited owning at least $86.5 billion in consolidated assets.

Out of that, $83.2 billion is in liabilities, revolving around Tether’s core product – USDT – stablecoin issuance pegged to the USD and backed by cash and cash equivalents. USDT is mostly backed by US government debt, as 64.5% of Tether’s total assets are in US Treasury Bills, at $55.8 billion.

The blockchain cybersecurity firm, CertiK, has reportedly been instrumental in uncovering critical security vulnerabilities in Apple’s latest iPhone operating system (iOS) update.

CertiK’s contributions were explicitly related to two security vulnerabilities in Apple’s iOS kernel, which were confirmed to affect the latest iOS devices. According to Apple’s official security update page, these vulnerabilities would have otherwise allowed an app to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.

The exchange-traded digital asset market has seen considerable outflows this week, marking a total of $107 million, illustrating an accelerated pace of ongoing profit-taking over the past weeks.

CoinShares’ Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly report stated that Bitcoin took center stage with outflows amounting to $111 million, recording the most significant weekly outflows since March this year.

Crypto trading on centralized exchanges declined by 12% to $2.36 trillion. This is the lowest volume recorded since the beginning of the year, indicating a significant downturn in trading activity, according to CCData.

A breakdown of these trading activities showed that spot trading volume fell 10.5% to $515 billion —the second-lowest since March 2019. On the other hand, derivatives volume fell 12.7% to $1.85 trillion, which is the second-lowest volume since December 2020.

The crypto research firm attributed the diminished volume to the lack of price action volatility in significant crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), which traditionally drive trading volumes. CryptoSlate Insight reported that BTC’s price movement in July was “closely confined” as the flagship digital asset had “virtually no change in its price” on some days.

A new report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) suggests that social media activity, especially from inauthentic accounts, may have significantly amplified the value of certain cryptocurrencies listed on the now-defunct FTX exchange.

The TRON (TRX) network exhibited considerable growth in Q2 in daily active accounts, new accounts, and transactions, as metrics increased by 14%, 13.4%, and 28.9%, respectively, according to a recent report by Messari.

Tron Q2 Growth.

This growth coincided with the launch of BitTorrent Bridge and Stake 2.0, among other developments, showing promising expansion of the network’s capabilities and user engagement.

Messari’s report notes that the surge in network activity boosted revenue by 11.6% quarter-over-quarter in TRX terms, translating to a 22.2% increase when measured in USD.

Interestingly, the revenue growth led to a significant amount of TRX being burned, supporting the token’s value in an otherwise flat-to-down market. TRX outperformed most Layer 1 tokens during the quarter, with its market cap swelling by 14.7% compared to the average 23% decline of other major L1 tokens.

The report also highlighted TRON’s ongoing efforts to expand DeFi as applications and infrastructure providers began integrating TRX liquid staking and the decentralized resource marketplace.

TRON’s most prominent DeFi protocols, such as JustLend, JustStables, SUN, and JustMoney, saw increased Total Value Locked (TVL) during the period, reflecting vibrant activity in the network’s DeFi sector.

Across the network, TVl grew 7% when denominated in dollars, but the underlying amount of TRX fell by 7.9%.