Tether wallet

What is Tether (USDT)?

USDT is a dollar-referenced token issued by Tether against reserves the company holds, and it is the unit most of the crypto market quotes prices in. That much is familiar. The part that matters when choosing where to keep it is that USDT is not one token but many parallel issuances, one per blockchain, all worth the same dollar and none of them interchangeable by simply sending them to each other.

Each issuance behaves like the chain it lives on. On account-model chains the balance simply sits at your address; on Solana it occupies a separate token account that must exist first. Fees are never paid in USDT: the host chain's own coin covers them, which is why a USDT balance with no native coin beside it is immobile. Fee costs differ enormously between chains too, which is the main reason people choose one issuance over another for a given transfer. One more property specific to this token: the issuer can freeze balances at particular addresses, a capability that has been used, and it applies to the token wherever it sits.

Before sending, the question is always the same one: which issuance is this, and does the receiving side expect that one? Tangem keeps each network's USDT as its own entry with its own balance, and the transaction screen names the network the transfer will go out on before the card signs it. That last look is yours to take, and with a token that exists in this many parallel versions it is the habit worth building. Keeping them all in one wallet, separated rather than merged, is why USDT sits well here.

Supported networks in Tangem (7): Ethereum, Solana, TRON, Avalanche, TON, Kava, Shibarium.