Tether retakes top 3 cryptocurrency spot over XRP – Decrypt

Tether (USDT) has become the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization today, pushing Ripples XRP down to the fourth place, according to crypto analytics platforms Messari and Coin Metrics.

If you multiple the number of coins in a cryptocurrency by its current price, you get its market capitalization. Its a way of comparing assets that have wildly different supplies. Since Tether is a stablecoin and its price doesnt really movethe price of a single USDT is designed to be mostly equal to $1the only way to increase its market cap is to mint new coins.

As Decrypt reported, Tethers market capitalization exceeded $12 billion just recently after increasing by $1 billion in one week. Today, it has already reached $13.14 billion, noted Coin Metric analyst Lucas Nuzzi in a tweet.

Nuzzi also listed the top five stablecoins by their year-to-date growth.

This is not the first time Tether has replaced XRP as the third-largest crypto. Amid the market meltdown back in March, USDT briefly overtook XRP after surpassing $5 billion in market cap.

Tethers growth comes despite its parent company dealing with several court cases. Currently, Tether and its sister company, crypto exchange Bitfinex, are in the middle of a fraud investigation led by the New York Attorney Generals office over allegations that they conspired to mask an $850 million dollar void in Bitfinexs finances.

A class-action lawsuit also accused Tether of damages of $1.4 million for printing billions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency and for manipulating the price of Bitcoin in 2017.

But in the meantime, Tether keeps growing.

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Tether retakes top 3 cryptocurrency spot over XRP - Decrypt