Stablecoin Economy Surges Past $150B, Stablecoins Command Over 50% of Global Crypto Trade Volume

A great number of digital currencies have swelled in value this year and as the end of 2021 approaches, the market capitalization of all 11,000+ crypto assets in existence is roughly $2.6 trillion. These days, it’s safe to say that dollar-pegged tokens, otherwise known as stablecoins, have a strong presence in the crypto market. Today the market capitalization of all the stablecoins in the world is more than $152 billion or 5.84% of the crypto economy’s USD value.

Stablecoins Have Seen Massive Growth Within the Crypto Economy

Stablecoins have been a hot topic in the cryptocurrency world as the growth of these dollar-pegged tokens in 2021 has been quite significant. Basically, a stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency that leverages the value of an external reference such as the U.S. dollar or another fiat currency.

The largest stablecoin today in terms of market capitalization is tether (USDT) as its current market valuation is $73.95 billion. During the last 30 days, USDT’s market valuation has increased by 3.9%. The second-largest stablecoin in terms of market capitalization is usd coin (USDC) with $37.6 billion, increasing by 15.2% in 30 days.

2 Dollar-Pegged Tokens Represent 73% of Stablecoin Economy, Stablecoin Trading Pairs Dominate

While the stablecoin market valuation is $152 billion, USDT and USDC combined command $111.55 billion or 73.38% of the stablecoin economy. While USDC’s market cap jumped more than USDT’s, it wasn’t the biggest increase last month within the top ten stablecoin standings. The stablecoin terra usd (UST) saw its market cap jump by 164.1% and frax (FRAX) increased by 119%. The stablecoin magic internet money (MIM) swelled by 56.8% and liquity usd (LUSD) increased by 49%.

The presence of stablecoins is strong and during the last 24 hours, stablecoin trade volume was more than 50% of the crypto economy’s global trade volume. Bitcoin (BTC) markets alone show tether (USDT) represents 52.63% of all BTC swaps today and the stablecoin issued by Binance called BUSD commands 7.05% of BTC’s trade volume. USDC is the seventh-largest trading pair with BTC and captures 1.75% of all BTC swaps.

Ethereum (ETH) markets are not much different as USDT represents 45.11% of today’s ether trading pairs. BUSD represents 9.60% of all BTC swaps on Friday and USDC commands 1.68%. Whether crypto markets are bearish or bullish, stablecoins like USDT, BUSD, and USDC have been BTC’s and ETH’s top trading pairs in 2021, alongside fiat currencies like USD, JPY, and EUR. The same can be said for a great majority of the top coins in the crypto economy, as stablecoin pairs represent a large portion of trades these days.