According to Tether’s official data, as of August 13, 2026, the TRON network on the blockchain has minted another $1.0 billion worth of USDT, reaching $91.2 billion. The issuance volume has again surpassed that of the Ethereum network’s USDT issuance ($90.3 billion), ranking first among all blockchain networks. This historic milestone further consolidates TRON’s leading position in the stablecoin sector, and once again validates the ongoing global draw of low-fee, high-efficiency settlement networks for stablecoin capital.
From a trading asset to a settlement tool, TRC20-USDT use cases continue to expand
The growth of USDT on the TRON network is first driven by sustainable, real-world usage demand. As of August 2026, the issued amount of TRC20-USDT on the TRON network has officially surpassed $91.2 billion, setting a new historical record. Approximately 10 billion additional coins have been minted within the year. The number of holding accounts has reached 74.57 million. With this scale, TRON has long been responsible for about half of the global USDT issuance volume, accounting for roughly 50%.
In terms of usage structure, TRON’s true payment characteristics are becoming increasingly clear. CoinDesk Research data shows that in Q1 2026, the quarterly average of TRON’s daily active accounts rose to about 3.2 million, setting a quarterly high. Meanwhile, for retail USDT transfers below $1,000, TRON’s share is about 50%; in the $1,000 to $100,000 range it remains dominant, continuously reinforcing its "friendly" blockchain positioning for retail and small-amount settlements. This means that one of USDT’s primary purposes on TRON is always actual value transfer between wallets.
Looking over a longer cycle, the on-chain transfer and settlement scale confirms this assessment. In a research report released by Messari, it was shown that in Q1 2026, the amount of USDT transfers processed by the TRON network was about $2.04 trillion, with approximately 950 million transactions across the entire network. Daily transactions increased from roughly 10.2 million in the previous quarter to about 10.9 million, also setting a quarterly record. Since 2026, TRON has been leading all blockchains by transferring about $4.2 trillion worth of USDT within the year.
What it depicts is not the ledger within a single trading platform, but a scenario in which massive numbers of wallets directly complete value transfers on a public blockchain.
Specifically, an overseas worker can send USDT to a family member’s wallet, and the recipient can exchange it for local currency. Cross-border e-commerce merchants can use USDT to settle with suppliers, reducing the impact of banking business hours and intermediary processes. Freelancers can receive payments from overseas clients and confirm on-chain settlement within minutes. Digital asset service providers can move liquidity among exchanges, custody wallets, and market-making accounts. While the amounts and purposes differ across scenarios, the shared requirements are always fast settlement, transparent fees, and 24/7 operation.
In addition, in a market environment where network fees fluctuate sharply, cost stability is especially important. Since August 2025, when TRON reduced the energy unit price by about 60% through Governance Proposal No. 104, on-chain transfer costs have been further lowered.
Ecosystem integration and security cooperation go hand in hand; stablecoin infrastructure continues to improve
Whether a stablecoin network can develop long-term depends not only on issuance volume, but also on entry coverage, liquidity depth, developer support, and risk governance capabilities. TRON is simultaneously building infrastructure along these directions.
In terms of application entry points, broad support for TRC20-USDT from wallets, trading platforms, payment service providers, and DeFi protocols enables users to relatively easily top up, withdraw, transfer, exchange, and interact on-chain. With the integration of new stablecoins such as USDD into the TRON ecosystem, the types of stablecoin assets are further enriched; protocols like JustLend DAO extend stablecoin usage to collateral and lending scenarios. Stablecoins are gradually evolving from a single transfer tool into a foundational asset for on-chain financial activities.
From the perspective of user experience, mechanisms such as GasFree attempt to solve a common pain point: new users’ wallets may hold USDT but still be unable to initiate transactions due to the lack of native tokens. By supporting the payment of related network fees with stablecoins, such solutions help simplify the first-use process. For merchants, wallets, and payment applications, reducing users’ costs related to understanding bandwidth, energy, and native Gas tokens also supports stablecoin services entering more mainstream consumer scenarios.
More importantly, scaling up must keep pace with security and governance capabilities. In September 2024, TRON, Tether, and TRM Labs jointly established the T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU). This combines TRON network visibility, TRM Labs’ on-chain intelligence capabilities, and Tether issuers’ freeze capabilities, and directly collaborates with law enforcement agencies across multiple regions. A typical workflow is: after law enforcement identifies a wallet associated with illegal activities, TRM Labs traces the fund flow path; TRON provides network-layer information about fund movement; and Tether executes freezing at the issuer level.
As of May 2026, T3 FCU announced that it has frozen more than $450 million worth of illicit assets globally, covering 23 jurisdictions across five continents. TRM Labs disclosed that this mechanism can complete the relevant actions within 24 hours after receiving a law-enforcement request. The above results reflect how combining transparency of public blockchains with public-private collaboration can improve the identification of suspicious funds and response efficiency.
While continuing to lead in the stablecoin settlement space, TRON is accelerating its bet on the new track of artificial intelligence. B.AI (Chinese brand name: "Bai B.AI"), officially launched in April this year, is positioned as "the underlying financial infrastructure for the AI Agent era." This move is consistent with TRON’s deep stablecoin foundation and its high-frequency, low-cost payment advantages. It signals that TRON is further moving from "the world’s largest stablecoin settlement network" toward "the underlying infrastructure for the AI agent economy," firmly betting on the long-term trend of AI and Web3 integration.
From leading in issuance scale, to continuously expanding payment and settlement advantages, to gradually improving security mechanisms, and then actively positioning in the AI space, TRON’s on-chain USDT competitiveness is shifting from "quantity accumulation" to "quality improvement".
TRON will continue to optimize network performance and user experience around stablecoin infrastructure, deepen collaboration with issuers, wallets, payment institutions, and security analysis organizations, and provide global users with more efficient, more secure, and more inclusive digital value transfer services.