Stablecoins are in fierce competition: market value rises to $170 billion, and many newcomers enter the market

Author: Nancy, PANews

Compared with the previous even-handed sector rotation, the market atmosphere of this round of crypto bull market has become increasingly deserted, while the stablecoin track is still lively. In addition to the continued growth of the existing market size, traditional giants have taken turns to make moves, new projects have repeatedly received financing, and product types have become increasingly diversified... The stablecoin market is in full swing.

Stablecoins continue to expand, with USDT contributing more than half,Newprojects have a significant growth rate but limited scale

The growth of stablecoins is often an important clue to the direction of the bull market. According to CoinGecko data, since the beginning of this year, the circulating market value of stablecoins has increased by more than 30.7% (about US$39.63 billion) to US$170.26 billion, accounting for nearly 8.2% of the total market value of the global crypto market, and is about US$17.6 billion away from the historical peak. Among them, the market is still dominated by stablecoins anchored to the US dollar, which account for about 96.2% of the market share with a market value of US$164.59 billion.

The growth of the market size of stablecoins mainly comes from leading projects. According to the market value changes of the top 10 stablecoin projects counted by PANews this year, the average market value of these projects has increased by nearly 85.3%, among which BUIDL, PYUSD and USDe have increased significantly, reaching 412.2%, 267.2% and 195.6% respectively. In contrast, the growth rate of leading projects USDT and USDC is not outstanding, and the performance of TUSD, FRAX, USDD and DAI is relatively backward, and even fell sharply.

From the perspective of market value growth, the market value of the top ten stablecoins has increased by more than 30.42 billion US dollars, accounting for 76.7% of the overall market growth. Among them, the market value surged the most for USDT, USDe and USDC, contributing 87.8% (US$26.73 billion), 5.8% (US$1.78 billion) and 3.6% (US$1.09 billion) respectively. The remaining projects are far behind the average, with a total market value growth of only US$820 million.

And market demand also stimulates the surge in the issuance of major stablecoins. According to PANews statistics, the top 10 stablecoins have issued nearly 56.95 billion this year, of which USDT has the largest issuance, reaching 42.42 billion, followed by USDC with 11.13 billion and USDDe with 2.59 billion. In terms of the growth rate of issuance, the average issuance rate of this project is 40.3%. Among them, the growth rate of USDe is as high as 285.6%, and the previous high APY may be an important reason for stimulating its demand; the issuance volume of TUSD is shrinking, which may be affected by factors such as Binance's cessation of support and changes in ownership.

As the market expands, the audience of stablecoins is also further opening up. According to rwa.xyz data, the number of stablecoin holders has increased by about 29.2% since the beginning of this year, and has now exceeded the 120 million mark. According to PANews statistics, the number of holding addresses of the top 10 stablecoins has increased by more than 1.55 million this year, mainly from USDT and USDC. The number of addresses of these two stablecoins has increased by 1.11 million and 414,000 respectively this year, far ahead of competitors. The average number of new addresses of other projects is only 3,000. And from the perspective of the increase in address speed, the average growth rate of these stablecoins reached 114.3%, mainly affected by the rapid expansion of some projects. Among them, FDUSD has the fastest growth rate, of course, this has a lot to do with Binance's "support". The upward momentum of PYUSD, USDe and BUIDL is also equally stimulated by the dividend mechanism, higher yields and other favorable stimuli, with growth rates of about 140% to 180%.

Diversified new entrants may open up new space for stablecoin growth

"According to an analysis conducted by the Center for Economic and Business Research from April to June this year, companies and consumers in 17 emerging markets are willing to pay an average premium of 4.7% above the standard dollar price to obtain stablecoins. In countries such as Argentina, this figure rises to 30%. By 2027, consumers in these countries will pay a premium of $25.4 billion to obtain stablecoins." Matthew Sigel, head of research at VanEck, recently wrote in an article on X.

In fact, as one of the important tools for financial innovation, stablecoins are gaining recognition and participation from more institutions, governments and funds, and will also provide stablecoins with a broader space for development outside the crypto market.

On the one hand, the participants in stablecoins are becoming more diversified. Recently, many traditional institutions and governments have announced their entry into the stablecoin market. For example, Japanese Internet giants DMM Group and Progmat announced joint research on the issuance of stablecoins for digital economic zones; Mercado Pago, a digital bank under Latin American e-commerce giant Mercado Libre, announced the launch of the US dollar stablecoin Meli Dollar in Brazil, where users can buy and sell the stablecoin with Brazilian real balances without fees; asset management and banking giant State Street is exploring the creation of stablecoins to settle transfers on the blockchain; Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon also revealed that the state plans to issue a US dollar stablecoin in 2025, aiming to support stablecoins through US Treasury bonds and repurchase agreements, and plans to launch a trading platform in the first quarter of next year.

At the same time, some established crypto projects or institutions from the DeFi, payment and VC fields have also revealed plans to issue stablecoins. For example, the recent lending agreement Liquity announced that it will launch a new stablecoin BOLD with borrowers setting the borrowing rate within two months, which can accept liquid pledged ETH derivatives as collateral assets; DWF Labs announced the completion of the synthetic stablecoin design, which will support collateral with different interest rates such as USDt, USDc, DAI, and USDe; Ripple will also launch the US dollar stablecoin RLUSD in the next few weeks, initially only open to institutions.

On the other hand, at a time when US dollar stablecoins dominate the market, more stablecoins supported by different fiat currencies are emerging. For example, Sony's Layer2 network Soneium will cooperate with Sony Bank to launch a Japanese yen stablecoin, Tether plans to cooperate with the UAE-based Phoenix Group PLC to develop a new stablecoin pegged to the UAE dirham (AED), and JD.com will issue a stablecoin pegged to the Hong Kong dollar 1:1 in Hong Kong, with reserves consisting of highly liquid and credible assets.

In addition, in recent months, capital has also been betting heavily on the stablecoin ecosystem, many of which have raised tens of millions of dollars, and the investment lineup is also quite impressive. For example, AI proxy encrypted payment network Skyfire announced the completion of a seed round of financing of $8.5 million invested by USDC issuer Circle, Ripple, Gemini, and the venture capital company of Tim Draper, a famous Silicon Valley billionaire; stablecoin infrastructure company WSPN completed a seed round of financing of $30 million led by Foresight Ventures and Folius Ventures; stablecoin payment platform Sling Money received a $15 million Series A financing led by Union Square Ventures; stablecoin Level developer Peregrine Exploration completed a $3.6 million financing led by Polychain Capital and Dragonfly; stablecoin payment network Bridge completed a $58 million financing with participation from Sequoia and Index; Hong Kong stablecoin issuer IDA received a seed round of financing of $6 million led by CMCC Global, etc.

Overall, although the stablecoin market represented by USDT is still expanding, the growth space is limited. As more new competitors with strong market resources and financial advantages join the stablecoin war, it may stimulate greater market vitality and endogenous driving force for development.