According to on-chain data, staking USDT (stUSDT) is a protocol that allegedly invests in US Treasury bonds to pay users profits in the form of staked tokens. However, its usage on Ethereum has collapsed following Poloniex, owned by Justin Sun, exiting its position.
Staking USDT is a token that has historically been used by entities and wallets closely associated with Sun, representing a significant portion of the reserves of his recommended cryptocurrency exchange, HT. In addition, a large portion of this token on Ethereum is controlled by the address 0x176F3DAb24a159341c0509bB36B833E7fdd0a132, previously marked as “Justin Sun 4” on Etherscan but now marked as “Poloniex 9”.
Determining whether this address is more under the control of Poloniex or Sun (if any difference exists) has become more challenging due to its significance. At times, this address has held up to 96% of the total supply of stUSDT on Ethereum. However, approximately three months ago, the exchange seemingly requested the withdrawal of around $30 million worth of tokens. Two days ago, around $11 million worth was withdrawn, and another $9.4 million today.
These withdrawals have left the token almost abandoned on Ethereum, with the remaining largest holder, address 0x9FCc67D7DB763787BB1c7f3bC7f34d3C548c19Fe, holding only $1.7 million worth, approximately 90% of the total supply.
The largest holder on Tron, address TDToUxX8sH4z6moQpK3ZLAN24eupu2ivA4, still holds a larger amount of $195 million, accounting for around 85% of the Tron supply.
Protos has reached out to Poloniex to confirm its control over the address, but as of the time of writing, no response has been received.
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