Highlights
- Tron's on-chain USDT supply grew by $4 billion over the past month to $94.27 billion, according to Tronscan data cited by on-chain analytics firm Lookonchain.
- The total now exceeds Ethereum's own USDT supply, flipping the two networks' long-standing order.
- The shift reflects Tron's low-fee, high-throughput design, which has made it the preferred rail for everyday USDT transfers across Asia and emerging markets.
- Ethereum still dominates USDT's use in DeFi lending and collateral, so the flip changes payment-rail share more than overall protocol relevance.
Tron's circulating USDT supply climbed by roughly $4 billion over the past 30 days to reach $94.27 billion, according to on-chain data tracked by Lookonchain, an amount that now exceeds the total USDT issued on Ethereum. PANews confirmed the figures on September 2, 2026, framing the move as a milestone in the multi-year contest between the two networks for stablecoin dominance.
The overtake has been building for months. Tron's authorized USDT supply first edged past Ethereum's earlier this year, and on-chain data from Tronscan shows the network's total has kept climbing steadily since, crossing $85 billion by March before adding several billion more through the summer and into this latest reading. TRC-20 tokens, the Tron-native standard for Tether, have become the default format for retail-sized transfers in markets across Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, where users move USDT peer-to-peer or through exchanges without touching Ethereum gas fees at all.
Why Liquidity Keeps Migrating to Tron
The mechanics behind the shift are structural rather than speculative. Tron doesn't charge gas in the Ethereum sense; instead, it allocates network resources through a Bandwidth and Energy system that users top up by staking or burning TRX, which keeps the marginal cost of a stablecoin transfer close to zero. That has made Tron the settlement layer of choice for high-frequency, low-value remittances and over-the-counter desks, particularly in regions where Ethereum's gas costs make small transfers impractical. Tether itself has leaned into this trend, continuing to mint new TRC-20 supply even as scrutiny of Tron's role in illicit-finance flows has grown among regulators and blockchain forensics firms.
Related: Mystery Whales Move $126M in ETH Matching Bitmine's Pattern
What the Flip Does — and Doesn't — Change
Overtaking Ethereum in raw USDT supply doesn't hand Tron the same institutional weight Ethereum carries in decentralized finance. Ethereum remains the chain where USDT is most deeply integrated into lending markets, collateral pools and cross-chain bridges, and Circle's USDC, the other major dollar stablecoin, still leans heavily on Ethereum rather than Tron. What the flip really measures is payment-rail share: where ordinary users and exchanges choose to move dollars day to day. On that metric, Tron's cheap, fast transfers have simply won a larger slice of the stablecoin pie than Ethereum's more expensive but more composable network.
Forward Look
The next test for Tron's lead comes as Tether continues rolling out native issuance on newer, purpose-built chains, and as Ethereum layer-2 networks push to bring gas costs down closer to Tron's levels. Whether Tron can hold this supply gap through the fourth quarter, or whether cheaper Ethereum L2 rails claw share back, will say more about the future shape of stablecoin distribution than the milestone itself.
FAQ
What is the new size of Tron's USDT supply?
Tron's circulating USDT supply reached $94.27 billion as of September 2, 2026, after growing by about $4 billion over the prior month.
Does this mean Tron has replaced Ethereum in stablecoins overall?
No. Tron now holds more raw USDT supply, but Ethereum still leads in USDT's use within DeFi lending, collateral and cross-chain applications.
Why is USDT supply growing faster on Tron than Ethereum?
Tron's Bandwidth-and-Energy fee model keeps transfer costs far lower than Ethereum gas fees, making it the preferred network for frequent, small-value USDT transfers.
Is TRC-20 the dominant version of USDT now?
Tron-based TRC-20 tokens have made up more than half of total USDT supply since earlier in 2026, according to Tether's own transparency data.
