Tether USDT has been privileged to hold top position in terms of stablecoins, but now tables seem to be turning, and other players are tucking in to its presence
- Out of thousands of cryptocurrencies out there, only a handful of them are stablecoins
- At present, Tether is the topmost stablecoin with its vast market share to date and current supply of more than 77 billion
- Recent increase in the supply of other stablecoins creating the situations where flagship stable coins may get competition soon
Circle’s dollar-backed stablecoin USDC has attained a breakthrough of 50 billion coins in circulation. CEO and co-founder of the company, Jeremy Allaire, tweeted about it on 1 February.
Stablecoins market’s presence in the global crypto market
The Stablecoin market has been very shallow compared to the total crypto market but has its presence. Currently, stablecoins have approx $177 billion market cap, which is 9.7% of the total crypto market value. Among around 36 stablecoins, Tether has been at the top of them all with its huge market supply and capitalization.
However, growth of USDC in market cap and supply can be seen as a threat to the position of USDT in the market. Being one of the earlier stablecoins, Tether has first-mover advantages, and it is still holding the status it has had since then.
About Tether/USDT
Tether was launched on Ethereum blockchain in 2014. USDT tokens issued by Tether limited, which works under cryptocurrency exchange firm Bitfinex. The stablecoins are designed to always stick to the dollar and maintain their value around $1.
Since its launch, it has shared the market with stablecoins like BitUSD and Nubits. But things have changed, and after 2016 USDT became the most popular stablecoin. This was continued till USDC came into the picture.
About USD Coin/USDC
Launched in September 2018, the USD coin is managed by a consortium known as Circle. The Consortium consists of members from crypto exchanges like Coinbase and bitcoin mining company Bitmain, etc. a peer founded the association to peer payments service company, Circle.
USDC is also a stablecoin and keeps its value around $1. Since its launch, it has been gaining popularity and proportionally market share. As a result, it became the leading stablecoin in market share after Tether. USD coin is also hosted on the Ethereum network, the same as USDT.
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Competition between top stablecoins
The actual growth of stablecoins reflects by its market supply and capitalization, which decides the market share. As discussed earlier, the total supply of stablecoins in the market is $177 billion.
Earlier, Tether USDT had dominance in the stablecoin region with a market share of approx 74%, whereas Circle’s USDC had only 16%. But now the former has shrunk to have around 45% market share where the latter one rose to 29%.
According to the reports, Tether has seen an expansion of 275% in market cap while at the same time Circle’s stablecoin showed remarkable growth of 987% in 2021.
CEO Allier stated USDC had recorded a growth of 10,000% in the last two years. The network had seen on-chain transactions worth $2.5 trillion and activated approx 4.6 million crypto wallets alone in 2021.
Currently, USDC runs on eight blockchains and more than 200 protocols supporting it. It is tradable across 180 countries with 34 exchanges.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/04/25/this-crypto-is-hastily-moving-forward-to-disrupt-tethers-market-share/