Stablecoin supply jumps to $146bn, biggest since FTX collapse

Since a low in August, the total stablecoin market capitalisation has bounced back, rising by $20 billion to $146 billion.

This recovery marks a turnaround after the market faced considerable hurdles over the past couple of years.

Stablecoins are digital currencies designed to maintain a stable value by being pegged to a reserve asset, such as the US dollar, to minimise price volatility.

An increase in the stablecoin market capitalisation is considered to have a positive impact on the crypto markets as it indicates new money entering the system.

The biggest contributor to this growth is Tether’s USDT. Tether was able to increase its total supply by over 52% since August, surpassing $100 billion in total circulating supply on March 5.

Tether has said it is solvent and functioning as expected, according to its own attestation. But it has faced questions regarding whether it’s properly maintaining the funds to back the USDT stablecoin.

Still, some users believe that the increase in USDT’s supply was a result of its resilience over the last bear market, with the stablecoin maintaining its peg through serious market turbulence.

Coming onto the scene recently is Ethena’s synthetic dollar stablecoin USDe, exploding from under $5m in total circulating supply on December 10 to over $978 million today.

Ethena has a strong crypto native backing but also offers users significant yields on stablecoin deposits.

Ethena lets users mint USDe with about $1 in Ether, when typically stablecoins are over-collateralized. It also offers users a high yield on USDe deposits, currently just over a 67% annual percentage yield, in addition to a points campaign.

Points are given out by projects to users for interacting with a protocol, and are generally converted to tokens at a later date.

Popular decentralised exchange, Curve Finance, also launched a stablecoin in May of 2023, dubbed crvUSD. Since launching, the stablecoin has grown dramatically, just breaking an all-time high in circulating supply of $164 million on March 8.

The stablecoin from Curve uses a novel “soft liquidation” mechanism that is designed to reduce losses for users borrowing in volatile market conditions.

Disclaimer: The two co-founders of DL News were previously core contributors to the Curve protocol.

Ryan Celaj is DL News’ New York-based Data Correspondent. Reach out with tips at ryan@dlnews.com.