According to Whale Alert, 100 million Tether (USDT) tokens were moved on the Ethereum blockchain from Tether Treasury, the issuer’s central wallet, to the Bitfinex exchange on Tuesday.
This transfer sparked speculation about a possible liquidity injection by Tether. Similar transactions have occurred recently: 127 million USDT on June 27 and 148 million USDT to an unknown wallet on June 25.
Alongside the Ethereum transfer, 100 million USDT was sent from Bitfinex back to Tether Treasury on the Tron blockchain. This indicates a chain swap operation, where USDT is moved between blockchains with Bitfinex acting as intermediary.
During such swaps, Tron-based USDT is returned to the treasury and effectively burned, while an equivalent amount is issued on Ethereum. This likely aims to rebalance liquidity across blockchains based on user demand, particularly increasing Ethereum-based USDT availability.
Meanwhile, DeFi activity on Tron is rapidly expanding, with liquidity increasing significantly, according to CryptoQuant.
Tether recently minted 2 billion tokens at its treasury on June 22, following major minting events on June 18. Data from CoinGecko shows the current USDT market cap is approximately $157 billion.