Stablecoins are Beginning to See Traction Outside of Crypto Exchanges
According to statistics published in Diar , stablecoins have seen more than 1000% increased transaction activity on-chain since September. This is not to speak to the massive volume at which they are traded internally on crypto exchanges, which numbers in the several billions per day.
The statistics are a change from previous times when the majority of Tether (USDT) would sit at Bitfinex or other crypto exchanges and not see much on-chain usage at all, in part because Bitfinex was the main exchange where they had real liquidity and in part because it was the best place to trade with them. That has changed in recent times, with Bitfinex implementing Tether neutrality, and other stablecoins entering the market.
TrueUSD, Paxos Standard, USD Coin, and Gemini Dollar saw a combined on-chain movement exceeding $5 billion since September, around which time they came into existence.
The volume of on-chain transactions raises the question of what all these stablecoins are doing, and the likely answer is that they are moving between exchanges and also being secured in their owners’ wallets periodically, instead of being left to the stewardship of the increasing number of exchanges which hold them.
TrueUSD had the most on-chain transactions by far, while USDC was in second place and PAX was last. The total value transferred in PAX was higher than USDC, however, accounting for $1.8 billion of the overall stablecoin transaction volume.
Around 65% of All Gemini Dollars Held by Huobi
In investigating this article, this reporter discovered an interesting fact about the Gemini Dollar. Of the top 3 holders of GUSD , two appear to be Huobi-owned addresses (named Huobi_3 and Huobi_7 respectively), and between them, they have a total of 51% of Gemini’s total units – $44.4 million worth. The number two holder is OKEx, another large Maltese exchange formerly based out of Asia. Huobi also has the fifth slot, with another ~$5 million, and several other slots as well, totaling around 65% of all tokens held.
It’s obligatory to note that these holdings are very likely not those of the crypto exchanges themselves, but their users, which tells a slightly different story about GUSD than the other stablecoins mentioned in this article. With the OKEx holdings and accounting for all of Huobi’s holding addresses, at least 78% of all GUSD is held in two exchanges – neither of which are Gemini, which is a positive sign for the stablecoin as a usable unit of exchange.
Huobi recently moved to a combined stablecoin market, calling the internal symbol HUSD, an exchange-only product that represents all stablecoins and enables swaps between the various tokens.
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