Tether to Transfer $1B USDT From Solana to Ethereum Network

• From its all-time high of $256, it has dropped 95 percent to its current price of $12.96.
• Solana has taken a significant hit post the FTX fall.

To move USDT from the Solana blockchain to the Ethereum blockchain, stablecoin issuer Tether has launched a $1 billion chain swap. The news comes as Solana, which was among the top 5 largest cryptocurrencies by market size only weeks ago, struggles in the wake of the bankruptcy of crypto exchange FTX.

With a 25.4% decline over the last week, Solana has fallen to the 16th spot in market capitalization. From its all-time high of $256, it has dropped 95 percent to its current price of $12.96.

Solana at the Receiving End

Transferring cryptocurrency from one blockchain to another is known as a “chain swap.” This is something Tether has done before when demand for its stablecoins moves from one blockchain to another. Tether, for instance, exchanged a total of $1 billion USDT from Tron to Ethereum twice in the period of two months in the middle of 2020.

Solana (SOL) is another smart contract network that aims to compete with Ethereum (ETH). Following the FTX fiasco, sell-offs occurred across the board for big cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, with Solana taking severe damage.

In addition to being significantly engaged in various Solana-related cryptocurrency initiatives, FTX also played a major role in building Solana’s principal decentralized exchange and DeFi liquidity provider, Serum.

On November 12, after a claimed hack to the FTX exchange, withdrawals were turned off, effectively taking Serum offline. Since the secret keys for the Solana DeFi project were also stored in FTX, its creators temporarily disabled access to Serum out of paranoia.