TRON's Average USDT Supply Hits $90.75 Billion in Q3, Overtaking Ethereum

TRON Takes the USDT Lead

TRON (TRX) held more Tether (USDT) than Ethereum on average through the third quarter of 2026, the first full quarterly period in which the balance has tipped, according to the Q3 report published on Nov. 2 by analytics platform Token Terminal, which TRON DAO shared. The study puts TRON's average USDT supply at $90.75 billion for the quarter, against $87.73 billion on Ethereum, a lead of $3.02 billion. USDT made up roughly 98.4% of TRON's average stablecoin supply, calculated from the report's totals.

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Q3 report published on Nov. 2.

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The comparison spans 12 tracked chains. TRON's average USDT balance grew 4.11% from the second quarter while Ethereum's fell 7.59%, and the two networks together carried 97.33% of native USDT across that set. Concentration matters as much as the crossover here: the dollar-pegged token, whose USDT price is designed to hold $1.00, now has one dominant settlement rail, and that rail changed during the quarter.

The report dates the leadership change precisely. TRON (TRX) first moved ahead on July 16, briefly slipped back, and has held the top position continuously from July 23. By Sept. 30 the network carried $92.35 billion in USDT against Ethereum's $86.69 billion, an end-of-quarter gap of $5.66 billion.

The wider supply picture shows TRON gaining while the field contracts. Average native stablecoin supply across the covered chains fell 2.41% quarter over quarter to $298.23 billion. TRON's own average supply rose 4.18% to $92.25 billion, up 14.58% year over year, lifting its share 1.96 percentage points to 30.93%. Its average circulating supply of stablecoins has expanded for three consecutive quarters, the report states, with $93.88 billion outstanding at the end of September. Quarterly averages smooth daily swings, so the $3.02 billion lead measures the period as a whole, and Ethereum had held the larger average through the second quarter before its balance contracted.

Holder counts on the network dwarf every rival tracked. TRON (TRX) averaged 76.53 million stablecoin holder addresses during the quarter, up 2.25% from Q2 and 11.27% year over year. The report's chain comparison puts Ethereum at 26.32 million and Solana at 12.11 million wallet addresses, so TRON's count was nearly twice their combined 38.43 million and represented 40.45% of the total across 45 tracked chains. The metric counts addresses with a nonzero native stablecoin balance and sums them across tokens, so it measures holdings, not distinct people.

Transfer activity stayed heavy. Stablecoin transfers on TRON totaled $2.18 trillion in the quarter, up 4.17% from Q2 and 3.70% year over year. At that pace, the report calculates, quarterly transfer volume equaled 23.67 times average supply, meaning the average stablecoin dollar moved once every 3.89 days. Transactions reached 1.08 billion, up 0.28% sequentially and 31.19% year over year, while average throughput slipped 0.81% to 135.76 transactions per second because the third quarter carried one more day.

Revenue moved the other way. Network revenue fell 3.10% from Q2 to $693.21 million, down 34.40% year over year, as average transaction fees dropped to $0.64, a 3.87% quarterly and 50.20% yearly decline. The report ties the yearly fee comparison to Proposal 104, which cut TRON's Energy price from 210 sun to 100 sun on Aug. 29, 2025. The platform counts fees paid through burned TRX or staking-derived Energy and Bandwidth as network revenue.

Monthly active addresses averaged 17.81 million, up 8.71% quarter over quarter, though activity eased from 20.09 million at June's close to 15.42 million on Sept. 30. “Transaction growth outpaced the increase in active addresses over the past year,” TRON DAO said in commentary accompanying the report. US access expanded during the same window: Anchorage Digital added native TRX staking on July 14, Bitnomial listed TRX futures on July 27, and Canary Capital's Staked TRX ETF began trading under TRXS on Sept. 9.

Ethereum's Decline Did Half the Work

The crossover is as much about Ethereum's side of the ledger as TRON's. Ethereum's average USDT balance fell 7.59% in the quarter while TRON's grew 4.11%, so the $3.02 billion lead came from movement in both directions, and the fee record shows the winning rail's cost: an average of $0.64 per transaction, down 50.20% year over year, against record transaction counts. The easing in active addresses, from 20.09 million at June's close to 15.42 million by Sept. 30, tempers any reading of accelerating use. Issuer-side strength sits behind the balances: Tether's Q3 attestation showed excess reserves doubling to $7.95 billion, while our October snapshot tracked USDT reserves on Binance down 7.95% to 29.48 billion tokens. The record establishes placement rather than momentum: USDT supply sat on TRON through Q3, its third straight quarter of growth.