PANews reported on May 15 that according to Whale Alert monitoring, Tether Treasury minted $1 billion USDT on the Tron network at 19:17 on May 15. Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino later clarified that the transaction was "authorized but not issued" and would be used as inventory for future issuance requests and on-chain redemptions. It is not currently in circulation. This operation is part of the regular inventory management process.