Stablecoins

Stablecoin market cap hits $141B: What it means for you

Whales accounted for 54% of the total stablecoin supply.

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  • The stablecoin market cap hit a 15-month high of $141 billion.
  • USDC’s market cap growth outpaced USDT.

In what was a sign of a clear bullish sentiment, the global stablecoin value recovered to levels last seen before the onset of the crypto bear market.

The market capitalization of such cryptos, which mimic the stability of national currencies, hit a 15-month high of $141 billion at press time, AMBCrypto noticed using DeFiLlama data,

Source: DeFiLlama

Institutional investors driving demand?

An increase in stablecoin supply typically suggests increasing capital inflows into the crypto market.

This is because most traders from traditional markets would use stablecoins to enter and exit trades on crypto exchanges.

The approval of spot Bitcoin [BTC] ETFs spurred demand for cryptocurrencies, causing many TradFi giants to enter the crypto landscape.

Most of these institutional investors have been steadily increasing their stablecoin holdings since the approval.

Notably, whale wallets accounted for 54% of the total stablecoin supply at press time, up from 49% on the approval day, according to AMBCrypto’s analysis of Santiment data.

Source: Santiment

The total number of stablecoins on exchanges witnessed an uptick in the last week, as per AMBCrypto’s assessment of CryptoQuant data, a sign of increasing buying pressure.

Note that BTC rose 25% over the week. Hence, it was likely that investors moved stablecoins to exchanges to purchase the king coin.

Source: CryptoQuant

USDC surpasses USDT’s growth

Leading assets of the ecosystem exhibited strong growth since the beginning of the year, according to data from Glassnode.

The largest stablecoin Tether [USDT] added more than $7 billion to its market cap year-to-date (YTD), marking a growth rate of 8%.

Seen as the bellwether of the broader market, USDT was eyeing a $1 trillion market cap in the coming days.

Source: Glassnode

USDT’s growth was outpaced by USD Coin [USDC], the second-largest stablecoin, which grew more than 17% YTD.

This was a marked turnaround from 2023 during which the asset lost 45% of its market cap owing to the banking crisis of March.