USDt, sometimes written USD₮, is the US-dollar stablecoin issued by Tether International, S.A. de C.V. It is the largest stablecoin by market capitalisation and circulating supply.
\nOne USDt is designed to always be redeemable for one US dollar from Tether International, per Tether International's terms of service. The peg is maintained by Tether holding reserves of cash, cash equivalents, and other assets that back the circulating supply.
\nThe composition of those reserves and the attestation reports are published on the transparency page at https://tether.to/en/transparency/.
\nThis is one of the more confusing topics for new users, so worth explaining plainly.
\nUSDt is not created out of thin air every time someone wants to buy it. The flow is:
\nThis means that when you buy USDt on an exchange, you are usually buying USDt that already exists in the exchange's inventory, not a freshly issued token. The token in your wallet corresponds to dollars that have already entered Tether's reserves at some prior point.
\nThis is also why USDt's price on any given exchange can drift slightly above or below one dollar in the short term: those drifts are usually a liquidity issue on that specific exchange (the exchange has run out of USDt or run out of dollars to redeem with), not a sign that Tether's reserves are short. See "primary market vs secondary market" in the concepts page for more.
\nUSDt is deployed on many blockchains. The most commonly used today are Tron and Ethereum, with a long tail (BSC, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Solana, TON, Avalanche, and others). The current canonical list is on tether.to.
\nThe same one US dollar of value can move between networks via official bridges or exchange withdrawals. Sender and receiver must use the same network when transferring. Sending USDt-on-Tron to a Tron address is fine. Sending USDt-on-Tron to an Ethereum address that the recipient gave you because they thought you would use Ethereum is the most common way users lose funds, and the loss is irreversible. See "how to send USDt" in the how-to guide for the step-by-step.
\nFor per-chain breakdown of users, market cap, and activity, see the network statistics in this knowledge base.
\nA practical observation, since users often ask "which one is the real USDt".
\nThere is no single "real" USDt. The token is the same idea on each chain (a USDt-issued claim against Tether International's reserves), but each chain has its own copy of the smart contract that tracks balances. Tether International issues onto each chain separately, and the total supply across chains is what is backed by the reserves.
\nThis is why you can hold USDt on Tron and your friend can hold USDt on Ethereum, and both of you have valid USDt, but you cannot directly send between them without going through a bridge or exchange.
\nUSDt is issued by Tether International, S.A. de C.V. The Tether Wallet app is published by Tether Data, S.A. de C.V., a separate legal entity. The wallet does not freeze, blacklist, or otherwise restrict USDt. Freezing or blacklisting of USDt happens at the token-contract level on the blockchain and is administered by Tether International, not by the wallet.
\nThis distinction matters for refusal handling. See the refusal templates (Groups A through H) for the verbatim Legal-approved responses when a user has a freeze or blacklist question.
\nDirect redemption of USDt for US dollars is handled by Tether International for verified counterparties, per Tether International's terms of service. Retail users typically convert USDt to local currency through an off-ramp (an exchange, a P2P platform, or a local agent), not by direct redemption. See "how to convert USDt back to local currency" in the how-to guide.
\nThe curated directory of vetted providers is maintained separately and is filterable by country and type. The public version is at usdt.directory.
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