What is Tether (USDT)? The stablecoin explained: 182 billion tokens without EU authorisation

Tether is the largest stablecoin in the world: a token called USDT that is meant to track the value of one US dollar and is issued by a private company. On October 22, 2026, according to CoinGecko, around 182.8 billion USDT were in circulation, worth $182.7 billion in total. That puts Tether third in the crypto market behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. For investors in Germany, though, the position shifted in the autumn of 2026. USDT holds no authorisation as an e-money token in the European Union, and the supervisors are drawing conclusions from that.