Winklevoss-Backed Stablecoin Soars Above $1 as Tether's Market Cap Plunges

A second stablecoin has broken its peg with the U.S. dollar - except this one's soaring well above a buck, not tanking below it.

At press time, the token was trading at $1.18.

At the time, a press release stated the token would be "Strictly pegged" to the dollar, as previously reported.

While tether regained its peg over the course of the day, its market capitalization has plunged, indicating the total supply of tokens has declined.

According to CoinMarketCap, roughly 2.26 billion USDT tokens remain in circulation, out of a roughly 3 billion total supply.

In contrast, there were about 2.67 billion tokens in circulation on October 14, two days ago, and 2.8 billion a week prior on October 7.

The decline in the token's market capitalization reflects this dwindling number of tokens in circulation: at press time the total market cap was roughly $2.2 billion, having dropped from $2.4 billion in about 10 hours.

Tether's market cap was $2.8 billion on October 7, matching the circulating supply at the time.

Perhaps most notably, CoinMarketCap data indicates that tethers are being taken out of circulation at regular intervals, as shown by the steep drops in the blue line representing USDT's market cap.

Neither Tether nor Gemini immediately responded to requests for comment.