News Roundup — Tether Reports Record-Breaking Profit of $5.2B for First Half of 2024

Major news stories this week;

1. Tether Reports Record-Breaking Profit of $5.2B for First Half of 2024
2. USDC trading volume soars 48% in July, driven by MiCA, market growth
3. Spot Ethereum ETF trading volume cools in third day, falls under $900 million
4. UAE residents can now trade crypto directly with their bank accounts
5. Trump Backs U.S. Bitcoin Reserve

Story Summaries;

1. Tether released its assurance opinion for Q2 2024, revealing record-breaking profits of $5.2 billion in the first half of 2024. The USDT stablecoin issuer revealed the second quarter of 2024 marked a significant milestone in net operating profit of $1.3 billion. According to Tether, it’s their best result ever. Furthermore, the company says that part of the profits of the second quarter were reinvested in strategic projects. These projects support the Tether ecosystem while maintaining a sizable amount of excess reserves ($5.3 billion) to further the stability of USDT. In Q2 2024, over $8.3 billion in USDT was issued. The Reserves for USDT in circulation amount to US$ 118,436,336,293. Paolo Ardoino, the company’s CEO, commented on the company’s impressive Q2 in a statement. “With the second quarter attestation of 2024, Tether has once again demonstrated its unwavering commitment to transparency, stability, liquidity, and responsible risk management. As shown in this latest report, Tether continues to shatter records with a new profit benchmark of $5.2 billion for the first half of 2024.
2. According to a July 31 report by CCData, the trading volume for USD Coin pairs on centralized exchanges reached $135 billion as of July 25, while its market capitalization rose 5.4% to $33.6 billion. With the implementation of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework, Circle became the first stablecoin issuer to be approved by regulators in the region on July 1. During the same period, Tether grew at a slower rate but still posted a record 11 consecutive monthly market capitalization increases to $114 billion. Tether's market cap increased by 1.6% in July. According to DefiLlama, USDT retains the largest market share of any stablecoin at nearly 70%. In addition, on July 31, Tether reported record profits of $5.2 billion in the first half of 2024.
3. Spot Ethereum ETFs generated strong trading volume on their third day on the market, but demand is cooling off after their hot start. The cumulative trading volume among the funds on Thursday was about $850 million, according to Yahoo Finance data compiled by The Block Pro Research. Trading volume eclipsed $1.05 billion in Tuesday's session and over $950 million Wednesday. The ETFs recorded $133.16 million in net outflows on Wednesday, a reversal from Tuesday's $106.78 million in net inflows. The Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) saw $326.86 million in net outflows — yet again, the only ether fund to log outflows, according to SosoValue. Ahead of Thursday's trading session, the price of ether had dropped more than 7% overnight. "The pronounced pullback… is not only unsurprising but expected," Keyrock's Justin d'Anethan told The Block earlier Thursday. "The market's memory is short, but while the spot bitcoin ETFs did push prices higher, in the very beginning, crypto markets went down."
4. Crypto exchange M2 announced that it will allow residents in the United Arab Emirates to buy and sell Bitcoin and Ether directly using their bank accounts. In an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the digital asset custodian said that the new integration allows UAE residents to directly convert their dirhams into Bitcoin and Ethereum. Through trading pairs listed on M2’s spot markets, users can trade BTC and ETH for dirhams and vice versa. In addition, users can also deposit and withdraw dirhams. The M2 team believes that the new integration enables users to “swiftly adapt to market changes,” allowing them to easily convert their local currency into crypto.
5. Former U.S. President Donald Trump promised to maintain a "strategic national bitcoin reserve" and "never sell" the government's seized bitcoin in a freewheeling speech that tightened the Republican candidate's grip on the crypto voting and fundraising bloc. Leading up the event, there had been speculation and hope among crypto fans that Trump would announce such a reserve. Speaking in a packed hall Saturday before over 3,000 attendees at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, Trump said of bitcoin, "I want it to be mined, minted and made in the U.S." He then laid out a "comprehensive" crypto policy that spanned from stablecoin regulation to the right to self-custody one's bitcoin. The speech capped bitcoin's steady march from the internet's deepest niches into the heart of American politics – whereas once, it was the vilified coin of choice for darknet markets.

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And that’s all for last week’s news! Wishing you a great week ahead!

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