We have always said that USD₮ is the worst possible choice for criminals, and the Binance' hack response shows why.
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, 2 November 2026
On DefiLlama's count, dollar stablecoins in circulation stood at $301.6 billion on 28 October 2026 and $293.2 billion on 7 November, down $8.4 billion in eleven days, falling on every one of the ten days from 29 October, the day thieves took $6.3 billion from Binance. 8 November added $0.07 billion back. The seven days to 4 November lost $5.8 billion, the steepest week of 2026 on DefiLlama's chart; the week Terra's UST collapsed in May 2022 lost $27.4 billion. The total is the lowest since 26 September 2025. The peak was $315.5 billion on 17 May; a year ago, on 8 November 2025, the figure was $302.5 billion. On 30 October Offrampt read the same series as flat for a year. It is not flat now.
USDT, the largest, went from $184.3 billion on 9 October to $179.6 billion on 2 November and $176.8 billion on 9 November, on DefiLlama's figures; USDC from $73.3 billion to $71.9 billion and $70.6 billion. Both still trade at about one dollar, USDT at $0.9989 and USDC at $0.9998 on 9 November. Tether's attestation for the third quarter, prepared by the accounting firm BDO and published on 30 October, gave $184 billion of USDT issued on 30 September, $191.5 billion of reserve assets, and a buffer of $7.95 billion above what it owes holders; its net operating profit for the quarter was $1.5 billion. A theft on its own does not shrink the supply: it shrinks when a holder hands coins back to the issuer for dollars and the issuer destroys them. GN Crypto reports that neither Tether nor Circle, which issues USDC, has linked the fall to the Binance theft.
On 2 November Tether said it had frozen more than $1.5 billion of USDT within 30 minutes of the Binance attack, which the FBI attributes to North Korea. By 31 October, Tether says, it had frozen about 1.6 billion USDT across more than 3,590 wallets for the US Department of Justice, Secret Service and FBI, and over its history more than 7 billion USDT on addresses on the open market, of which about 1.2 billion has gone back to its owners or to law enforcement through reissue. Frozen USDT stays on the chain and cannot move; it is still counted in the supply until Tether destroys and reissues it.
In Thailand USDT is the coin the central bank is counting. On 28 January 2026 Governor Vitai Ratanakorn said USDT was 52% of crypto trading volume in Thailand and about 40% of the people trading it on Thai exchanges were foreigners, and asked the SEC for the trading data. On 2 October he put abnormal conversion through foreign exchange and stablecoins such as USDT at several hundred billion baht over the previous four to five months, with cases of money withdrawn to buy USDT and sent abroad under other people's names. On Bitkub's own order book USDT was 50.7% of baht trading on 6 November. The SEC's September proposal, a 5 million baht daily cap per operator and transfers only to a customer's own verified wallet, is on the rules page. The Bank of Thailand plans rules for a baht stablecoin in March 2027; the hearing on its principles runs to 17 November. In the plan, a foreigner holds the coin only in a verified Thai wallet, and an issuer must be able to freeze or destroy coins used illegally.
Speed: weeks
Falling, in weeks: about $0.8 billion a day for ten days, after a year in which the series moved less than that in most weeks. At that pace the total passes the September 2025 low of $280.1 billion in about two weeks; the guess is that it does not, and that the fall slows into a long drift instead. The guess rests on the last comparable event: after FTX failed in November 2022 the supply went from $145.8 billion to a low of $122.6 billion nine months later, a 16% fall spread over months, and took until March 2024 to regain the November 2022 level. A run would look different, a price under $0.99 and a week of $2 billion days; on 9 November both coins sit at about a dollar and Tether's buffer is $7.95 billion. For a holder in Thailand the number that moves first is not the world total but the door: the share of baht trading that is USDT, about half on Bitkub, and the rules the SEC and the Bank of Thailand write for it, five of them due between now and March 2027.