Stablecoin: market cap for the first time above 200 billion

Between yesterday and today, for the first time in the history of the crypto market, stablecoins have surpassed 200 billion dollars in market cap.

This is an important milestone, also in view of the possible delisting of USDT in Europe. 

The market cap delle stablecoin

The two main stablecoins taken together, USDT and USDC, capitalize alone more than 180 billion dollars, so less than 10% of the overall market capitalization of stablecoins is due to the other tokens.

Note that the peak of the previous cycle, which arrived in early May 2022 before the depeg of UST and the implosion of the Terra/Luna crypto ecosystem, was just under 190 billion dollars, so a figure not far from the current one. 

Subsequently, after the collapse of the market capitalization of UST due to the depeg, and the sharp decline of that of USDT due to mere fear, the market capitalization of stablecoins hit a low peak shortly after the middle of last year at about 124 billion dollars. 

As can be easily noticed, it is a curve that varies relatively little and only over relatively long periods, so much so that in the days of the UST crash, the variation was only -15% in ten days. 

Starting from the end of 2023, with the beginning of last year’s bullrun, even the market capitalization of stablecoins started to rise again, so much so that by April of this year it had already returned to 160 billion. 

The previous peak of 190 billion was surpassed only in the second half of November, after Trump’s electoral victory, and precisely on November 30, a new rise began, still ongoing, which brought the market capitalization of stablecoins for the first time in history above 200 billion dollars. 

The principali stablecoin

The main stablecoin in the world continues to be USDT by Tether, which with its 140 billion dollars alone constitutes almost 70% of the entire stablecoin market, or more than double all the others combined.

In second position is USDC, far behind, at 41 billion. 

All the other stablecoins together do not capitalize more than 20 billion dollars. 

USDT, however, could experience a setback if it were to actually be delisted from exchanges in Europe. 

In fact, according to the new crypto regulation of the European Union (MiCA), USDT would not be compliant. This would effectively force centralized exchanges to make it no longer usable by users residing in EU countries. 

It should be remembered that, despite the EU having more inhabitants than the USA, it is actually only the third crypto market in the world by trading volume, behind not only the North American one but also that of East Asia. 

Furthermore, the delisting will occur only from centralized exchanges, and not from decentralized ones which, not having KYC, are not able to determine the country of residence of their users. 

This, if it happens, will favor the adoption of USDC in Europe, even if it will probably not be able to stop the growth of USDT (but only slow it down). The new regulations will be applied starting from December 31. 

The future of stablecoin: overview and market cap

The growth trend of stablecoins has been going on in a practically constant way for more than a year now. 

Furthermore, it generally continues well beyond the end of the bull-market, and this could potentially drive it to grow even until the spring of 2026. 

The hypothesis circulating is that it could double its current size, reaching over 400 billion dollars in capitalization within two years. 

It is worth noting that although this figure appears enormous, it is actually in line with the estimated wealth of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. This comparison gives a good idea of how small the global crypto market still is. 

It is enough to consider that Ethereum alone already capitalizes more than 470 billion dollars today, while Bitcoin has even almost reached 2,000 billion.

Therefore, the growth margins of stablecoin still appear significant. 

The use of stablecoin

However, there is a substantial difference between the use of stablecoins and that of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

In fact, stablecoins are increasingly used as a means of payment, especially in those countries where the local currency is weak and it is not easy to obtain dollars (such as in Argentina). 

So if on one hand cryptocurrencies are still primarily used as an investment or speculative tool, stablecoins are slowly starting to be adopted outside of financial markets for everyday purposes. 

This dynamic in turn could attract many new users to the crypto markets, where stablecoins can be spent, for example, to invest or speculate on cryptocurrencies.