Tether USDt was the top currency for deposits among earners on Brighty last year. It made up an impressive 85% of all crypto deposits.

According to a recent report, Tether USDt is the largest stablecoin by market cap. In 2024, it became the go-to currency for salary payments and savings on the European crypto banking platform Brighty. The report, titled “Crypto Earners’ Money Habits,” shared with Cointelegraph, shows that USDt accounted for 85% of total crypto deposits on the platform.

USDt also ranked second in savings assets, right after the euro. It represented 33% of all business-to-customer (B2C) savings. Brighty gathered these insights from its user base of 200,000 and conducted surveys with 400 crypto earners across the European Union.

When it comes to stablecoins, TRC-20 USDT, which is issued on the Tron blockchain, was the most popular on the platform. It accounted for more than 60% of all USDT transactions. This popularity is mainly due to lower transaction fees compared to ERC-20 USDT, which is based on Ethereum and has higher fees.

The data shows that USD Coin, a competitor, only made up 5% of B2C deposits last year. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, also held a 5% share. Brighty's survey revealed that over 70% of respondents mentioned lower transaction fees as a key reason for using crypto more often for payments.

Brighty’s findings raise important questions about the European crypto framework known as Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA). Circle, a competitor to Tether, received a MiCA license for its USDC stablecoin last year. Meanwhile, Tether has opposed some of the MiCA requirements, distancing itself from compliance. Some industry experts believe this could lead European crypto asset service providers (CASP) to limit the use of USDT as a noncompliant MiCA stablecoin.

“Historically, USDT has represented more than half of all crypto used by users,” said Nick Denisenko, Brighty’s co-founder and CTO, in an interview with Cointelegraph. “We expect a challenging transition to USDC, and users will need time to adapt to these changes.”

Brighty is a Swiss personal finance app that combines traditional digital banking with the benefits of stablecoins and decentralized finance. It offers services like crypto exchange against various fiat currencies, especially targeting global digital nomads. This group is expected to grow to 60 million by 2030.

As a European CASP, Brighty is working to secure a MiCA license from local regulatory authorities, according to Denisenko.