In the words of Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, “PSA: 1B USDt inventory replenish on Ethereum Network. Note this is an authorized but not issued transaction...”
Stablecoin issuer Tether minted $1B worth of USDT tokens for inventory replenishment on the Ethereum (ETH) network.
On December 25, blockchain analytics firm Whale Tracker revealed that 1,000,000,000 USDT tokens were generated at Tether Treasury, with Tether paying a gas fee of 0.01 ETH on the transaction.
Soon, Paolo Ardoino, the new CEO of Tether, revealed that the USDT tokens were minted for inventory replenishment, which is a common business practice. Inventory replenishment (or stock replenishment) is a procedure used by firms to avoid running out of stock without stockpiling excess products in advance.
According to Ardoino, the 1B USDT tokens were “authorized but not issued.” The tokens will be used to maintain liquidity on the Ethereum network and will act as inventory for the next period of chain swaps and issuance requests from clients.