For a couple of hours, earlier this week, Tether USDT stablecoin held the next market cap than Ethereum, the primary time that has occurred in eight years. Knowledge throughout a number of trackers positioned each property within the $183–188B vary through the crossover window, with one snapshot displaying USDT at $187B in opposition to ETH at $186B, an expansion of underneath $1B.

The flip lasted hours, and ETH reclaimed second place as soon as the worth stabilized. The mechanism that produced the crossover, regular USDT provide growth assembly sustained ETH worth weak spot, didn’t disappear when the rating reversed.
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Crypto Market Construction: Tether USDT Flippening
This was not a provide shock on Ethereum’s facet. What compressed ETH’s market cap was worth, and what expanded USDT’s was issuance. Tether personal This fall 2025 attestation confirmed USDT at a report $187.3B, having added $12.4B in a single quarter even because the crypto market was catching a falling knife.
By early 2026, USDT’s market cap had climbed from $144.2B to $184B in twelve months, 28% development, whereas ETH’s greenback valuation moved in the wrong way.
Within the three weeks main into the crossover, greater than $7B exited the stablecoin sector whereas $400B was wiped from the overall crypto market cap. Ethereum’s DeFi TVL slid to round $36B. Merchants weren’t abandoning stablecoins; they had been parking liquidity whereas shedding risky property.
USDT’s share of the overall stablecoin sector sits at 59%, with USDT and USDC collectively accounting for 82%, which suggests Tether will not be a peripheral participant on this dynamic.
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Mike McGlone’s Warning: It Doesn’t Cease at Ethereum
Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone has been monitoring this trajectory longer than most. In October 2020, McGlone wrote that USDT, then at $16B in opposition to ETH’s $43B, was “on tempo to match the market capitalization of Ethereum in a bit lower than a 12 months,” describing it as a part of an “inexorable development” towards stablecoins gaining mainstream footholds.
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Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone says Tether's USDT stablecoin is on monitor to ultimately flippen each Ethereum and Bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/kiAbF30dbb
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) February 13, 2026
McGlone’s up to date thesis goes additional. He expects “the flippening to proceed,” with Tether’s market cap topping Ethereum in 2026 and “ultimately Bitcoin.” The acute situation he outlines: if Bitcoin falls towards $10,000, USDT, which would want to develop 7x from present ranges, may ultimately problem BTC for the highest spot.
We aren’t endorsing the $10,000 BTC situation right here. However dismissing it solely as a result of it sounds excessive is how individuals missed the USDT-flips-ETH name within the first place.
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ETH and USDT Now: The Hole, the Restoration, and What Comes Subsequent
As of immediately, Ethereum has reclaimed the second place in market cap rankings, however the margin will not be snug. ETH would want to maintain significant worth restoration, or Tether USDT issuance would want to plateau for the second place to really feel safe once more.
Neither is assured. Structural enhancements in Ethereum’s tech stack, together with ZK-proof scaling developments, supply a longer-term bullish counterpoint, however these catalysts function on a special timeframe than the near-term worth weak spot that enabled the June flip.
Ethereum (ETH)24h7d30d1yAll time
USDT’s provide trajectory reveals no signal of reversal. Tether added $12.4B in a single quarter throughout a down market. In a impartial or risk-on surroundings, that tempo may speed up. At $1 peg, market cap and circulating provide are primarily the identical quantity, so each new USDT minted is a direct market cap increment, with out the worth volatility that governs ETH’s rating.
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The submit Tether USDT Briefly Overtakes Ethereum in Market Cap: A $187B Wake-Up Name appeared first on Cryptonews.
Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone says Tether's USDT stablecoin is on monitor to ultimately flippen each Ethereum and Bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/kiAbF30dbb