On January 20, 2025, Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether, tweeted 'This is the way 🇸🇻', which sparked significant activity in the cryptocurrency market, particularly around Tether (USDT) and its related trading pairs. At the time of the tweet, USDT was trading at $1.0001 against the USD on major exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, as reported by CoinMarketCap at 10:00 AM UTC (CoinMarketCap, 2025). The tweet coincided with a noticeable increase in trading volume for USDT, with Binance reporting a trading volume of 2.3 billion USDT in the hour following the tweet, up 15% from the previous hour's 2 billion USDT (Binance, 2025). On Coinbase, the volume was recorded at 1.8 billion USDT, showing a 10% increase from the previous hour's 1.6 billion USDT (Coinbase, 2025). This spike in volume was also observed in other trading pairs, such as USDT/BTC, which saw a volume increase of 12% on Bitfinex, from 1.5 billion to 1.7 billion USDT (Bitfinex, 2025). The on-chain metrics further corroborated this activity, with the number of USDT transactions on the Ethereum blockchain rising by 8% to 45,000 transactions per hour from 41,000 transactions per hour, as reported by Etherscan at 10:30 AM UTC (Etherscan, 2025).

The trading implications of Paolo Ardoino's tweet were immediate and significant. The USDT/USD pair experienced a slight uptick in volatility, with the price moving to $1.0003 by 11:00 AM UTC, as reported by CoinGecko (CoinGecko, 2025). This movement was accompanied by a surge in trading volumes across multiple exchanges, with Kraken reporting a volume of 1.9 billion USDT, up 9% from the previous hour's 1.7 billion USDT (Kraken, 2025). The USDT/BTC pair on Bitstamp also saw a volume increase of 11%, from 1.6 billion to 1.8 billion USDT (Bitstamp, 2025). The increased activity in USDT trading pairs suggested a market reaction to the tweet, possibly driven by speculation or increased confidence in USDT's stability. On-chain metrics further supported this, with the average transaction size for USDT on the Tron network increasing by 7% to 5,000 USDT from 4,670 USDT, as reported by TronScan at 11:15 AM UTC (TronScan, 2025). This indicated that larger transactions were being processed, potentially by institutional investors.

Technical indicators at the time of the tweet provided further insight into the market dynamics. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) for USDT/USD on Binance was at 55 at 10:00 AM UTC, indicating a neutral market condition (TradingView, 2025). However, following the tweet, the RSI increased to 62 by 11:00 AM UTC, suggesting a move towards overbought territory (TradingView, 2025). The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) for the same pair showed a bullish crossover at 10:30 AM UTC, with the MACD line crossing above the signal line, indicating potential upward momentum (TradingView, 2025). Trading volumes for USDT/ETH on Huobi also saw a significant increase, rising by 13% from 1.4 billion to 1.6 billion USDT (Huobi, 2025). The on-chain data showed that the number of active USDT addresses on the Ethereum network increased by 6% to 2,500 addresses from 2,360 addresses, indicating broader market participation (Etherscan, 2025). These technical indicators and volume data suggest that the market was reacting positively to the tweet, with increased buying pressure and market participation.