Venezuela’s USDT trading hits $1.4B, rivals oil: ‘The ultimate social network’
USDT market cap has dropped by $6B despite the growing adoption.
Venezuela’s USDT trading has hit $1.4B on Binance P2P for the first time. According to Alejandro Grisanti, director at analytical firm Ecoanalítica, the volume was hit between mid-June and mid-July, averaging $44M per day.
For Grisanti, this P2P volume rivaled foreign exchange and Venezuela’s oil exports.
To put the figure in perspective: it equals 88% of all foreign exchange sales carried out by the BCV during June. It represents around 75% of the value of Venezuela’s monthly oil exports.
BCV is the central bank of Venezuela, and the sheer size of USDT volume underscored the limitations with traditional systems, added Grisanti.
These numbers confirm that Binance has stopped being a marginal market to become one of the main channels for buying and selling foreign currency in the country.
The analyst argued that the limited supply of foreign exchange forced users to platforms like Binance.
However, Grisanti projected that the P2P volume could drop if the BCV increases foreign exchange supply and allows most of the volume to go to traditional rails.
The report confirmed Binance’s recent study, which found LATAM stablecoin users have doubled. This included the growing USDT traction across major markets like Bolivia.
Tether CEO hails USDT as ‘ultimate social network’
Tether CEO echoed a similar stance, noting that the stablecoin’s “userbase grows at 30M+ per quarter.” He concluded that,
For perspective, in Q1 2026, reported USDT users were 628 million. As of Q2, it jumped to 674M users – Nearly 50M users added in a single quarter.
For Ardoino, the USDT user growth was a testament that “money is the ultimate social network.” While the widening user base and LATAM volume underscore USDT’s utility, speculation still influences the stablecoin’s activity.
Since last October, USDT’s transfer volume dropped from $700B to $278M in mid-July 2026. The slow decline mirrored broader crypto downturn as BTC fell from over $120K to $60K over the same period.
However, the USDT market supply only began to decline in May 2026. It has slipped from nearly $190B to $184B, underscoring $6B in capital outflows in the past two months. This coincided with Bitcoin [BTC] rejection at $80K and subsequent dip to the $60K zone.
Overall, despite growing USDT utility, crypto speculation seems to be driving most of its market supply.
Final Summary
- USDT volume on Binance hit $1.4B, marking 74% of Venezuela’s oil exports or nearly 90% of foreign exchange reserves
- USDT is growing at over 30M+ per quarter, but crypto speculation is still a major catalyst.
