The Top 6 Stablecoins That Are Helping Drive the Current 2024 Crypto Cycle

The market cap of all stablecoins has grown 30% this year from $130 billion to nearly $170 million, a more than two-year high

The market cap of all stablecoins has grown 30% this year from $130 billion to nearly $170 million, a more than two-year high that reflects the public’s growing enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies.

This enthusiasm is also evident in the increasing willingness of crypto users to hold money onchain instead of in a traditional bank account.

“Globally, there is a growing adoption of digital assets as part of the broader trend toward digitization in finance,” said Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of the largest stablecoin provider Tether, in an email to Unchained.

“This adoption is driven by a combination of the increasing need for efficient cross-border transactions, the desire for financial inclusion, and the demand for alternatives to traditional banking systems, especially in regions with unstable fiat currencies.”

Stablecoins are tokens that can be used onchain and are designed to stay pegged to fiat currency in an effort to minimize volatility. The lack of volatility means they are often used for routine transactions.

While each stablecoin aims to maintain its peg to a specific fiat currency such as the U.S. dollar, not all stablecoins are designed to uphold their peg in the same way. Some are backed by cash and cash equivalents, while the mechanisms of others are dependent on crypto assets and short future positions.

Since stablecoins are designed not to move much in price, their market cap is a good proxy for demonstrating how large the crypto ecosystem truly is. The market cap shows “how many people are actually happy to have money, [or rather] the equivalent of money, onchain as opposed to in their bank account,” said Aurelie Barthere, principal research analyst at blockchain analytics firm Nansen.

Here are the top six stablecoins by market cap that are helping drive the current 2024 crypto cycle:

1. USDT

Market cap: $118 Billion

Year Started: 2014

Tether issues five different stablecoins of which its USDT offering, which tracks the US dollar, is the largest, taking a nearly 70% share of the entire stablecoin market, Nansen data shows.

Tether’s USDT went at the beginning of s2023 from a 48% share of total stablecoin market cap to 70%, “a huge gain” Nansen’s Barthere said.

Tether maintains USDT’s peg to the US dollar by holding fiat currency. According to its June transparency report, Tether’s reserves are largely composed of U.S. Treasury Bills, money market funds, and overnight reverse repurchase agreements.

Even though Tether has quarterly attestation reports detailing the reserve backings it holds, the firm has yet to have an official audit, a fact that has drawn significant criticism. Last December, S&P’s inaugural stablecoin stability assessment gave Tether a score of 4 on its ability to maintain its peg to a fiat currency, the second-worst possible score.

The Tron network holds just under 50% of the total USDT supply, followed by Ethereum at 39%, data from DefiLlama shows. Despite Ethereum trailing Tron, the average USDT transaction size on Ethereum is much larger than on Tron — $38,510 on Ethereum, compared to $6,550 on Tron, according to onchain intelligence platform Artemis.

2. USDC

Market cap: $33.8 Billion

Year started: 2018

Circle’s flagship product reached an all-time high in market cap of $55.6 billion in July 2022, but proceeded to shed more than half of that by December 2023.

USDC’s decline in market cap came largely from the impact of USDC depegging in March 2023 when two federally insured members of the Federal Reserve System — Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate Bank — shut down. Circle had previously held a significant portion of USDC reserves in cash in those banks.

Circle’s position as an important player in the stablecoin ecosystem is also related to the firm’s relationship with Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US. The technology underlying USDC was jointly developed by Coinbase and Circle. The exchange also acquired an equity stake in Circle.

Coinbase is the largest holder of USDC on Base, the layer 2 network incubated by the exchange. Nansen’s data shows 20 out of the top 21 USDC holders of Base, belong to Coinbase, with each holding $101 million worth of USDC. In the first half of 2024 ending on June 30, Coinbase generated roughly $437.8 million in revenue from stablecoins, more than 14% of the firm’s total revenue of about $3 billion, according to Coinbase’s latest quarterly report.

Two-thirds of the USDC supply lives

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