It’s unsurprising that Bitcoin and Ethereum price volatility tends to chase money into stablecoins, which were designed to offer price stability without the need to convert digital assets to fiat.
As of today, the market cap for all stablecoins sits at $114.8 billion,
according to CoinGecko.
The last 90 days saw significant increases in the market caps of the five largest: Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), Binance USD (BUSD), Dai (DAI) and
TerraUSD (UST). That group, which accounts for all but 5% of the total value sitting in stablecoins, grew 40.7% in the last three months – from $77 billion
to $108.5 billion.
While stablecoins were experiencing growth, Bitcoin and Ethereum lost 46.4% and 14.5% of their respective market caps.
The growth of USDC has been especially impressive. Its market cap ballooned by 94.9% over the last three months. And Tether, which has long been the most dominant and recently drew the ire of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, has started losing ground. It used to account for 63.6% of value stored in
stablecoins at the end of April, but has since slipped to 55.8%.
Yellen isn’t the only one who’s been fretting about stablecoins. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell mentioned them specifically during a Congressional hearing.
“They are like money funds, they’re like bank deposits and they’re growing incredibly fast but without appropriate regulation,” he said, alluding to the fact that money-market funds were under-regulated in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis.
It’s unsurprising that Bitcoin and Ethereum price volatility tends to chase money into stablecoins, which were designed to offer price stability without the need to convert digital assets to fiat.
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