Two 50 million Tether (USDT) transactions have been transferred from Bitfinex to the “Tether Treasury” address, according to transfer receipts from Whale Alert. 

Both transactions took place on Oct. 2, 2023, two minutes apart. The first lump sum of 50 million USDT occurred at 9:43 am UTC and was worth $50,039,125. The second was at 9:45 am UTC and was worth $50,038,875.

According to data from CryptoQuant, stablecoin holdings in exchanges have steadily declined over the past year, beginning around November 2022.

Before the decline, around the beginning of 2021, stablecoin holdings on crypto exchanges hit a new all-time high (ATH), with coins like USDT flooding in. 

These new market conditions have spurred comments from the crypto community on X (formerly Twitter), who have responded to the massive transfers by calling them a “pump.” This refers to pumping a stock or a specific token to entice investors toward purchasing that particular asset.

However, on Sept. 29, the market intelligence platform Santiment posted about the market trends, including a remark that Tether “sharks and whales” are gaining buying power, which it said is “generally a bullish combination.”

#Bitcoin's sharks & whales, which we define as 10 to 10K $BTC wallets, have now accumulated to their highest amount held in 2023 (13.03M $BTC). Additionally #Tether sharks & whales are accumulating buying power. This is generally a #bullish combination. https://t.co/Lic2QBXSUw pic.twitter.com/dIcq1sUNJY

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) September 28, 2023

Related: Tether reportedly shuts USDT redemption for some Singapore customers

According to Cointelegraph’s own analysis, stablecoins have been experiencing a 17-month decline, with investors moving to more traditional assets.

This comes as the United States Federal Reserve called the assets a potential “source of financial instability” on Sept. 28.

It said that its findings show that, “stablecoins are vulnerable to runs during periods of broad crypto market dislocation as well as idiosyncratic stress events.”

This asset type has also been a major talking point for officials in lawsuits plaguing the crypto industry. In the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission vs. Binance case, USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle recently argued that stablecoins are not securities. 

Despite this, Tether has seen a rise in USDT-based stablecoin loans in 2023.

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