Why USDT Is Trading 10% Above Its Dollar Peg in India

A stablecoin has one job: stay worth a dollar. Last week in India, it stopped doing it.

India’s Enforcement Directorate raided five crypto-payment firms over $265 million in unauthorized cross-border transfers moved through USDT, per the Enforcement Directorate’s Bengaluru raid on 2026-06-17, as reported by CoinDesk. The firms that import USDT to sell it locally pulled back, and supply dried up almost overnight.

The result: USDT traded up to 10% above its dollar peg on Indian exchanges, CoinDesk reported on 2026-06-30 — up from the 8.5% premium the outlet had reported just a day earlier, and roughly triple the normal 3-4% gap.

This is the world’s #1-ranked crypto adoption market, and a token backed one-to-one, with a $184 billion global market cap, still dislocated 10% because one country’s legal on-ramp got squeezed. Stable, it turns out, is local.

It’s a supply crunch, not a Tether solvency issue, and it should compress as liquidity returns.

What this doesn’t show: the premium figures are read off CoinDesk’s reporting of exchange quotes, not a single official tick.