Dollar-backed stablecoins faced the massive increase in volume as hundreds of millions entered in response to recent Bitcoinโs price crash.
The global market downturn last Thursday was hard for everyone in the industry, who has invested in Bitcoin (BTC) or another top virtual currency. However, there were assets, which benefited from the havoc and these were stablecoins.
Tether market cap record
Over the course of massive sell-offs the leading stablecoin Tether (USDT), announced that the size of its market capitalization has exceeded $5 billion. The company called this an important milestone and the confirmation of USDT as the โpreeminent stablecoinโ with the biggest market capitalization.
Although Tether (USDT) wallet shows the current market capitalization of $5.2 billion, the aggregators in the market still didnโt reflect the current increase of USDT minted during the few days. CoinmarketCap reports Tether (USDT) to have a market cap of $4.6 billion at the moment of writing.
Tether (USDT) is the largest stablecoin in the market despite the fact that there are other stablecoins already operating in the field. However, if the demand for the USDT continues to grow and Ripple (XRP) falls further, Tether may become the third most valuable virtual currency for the first time in history.
The rise of stablecoins
Other stable tokens, pegged to US Dollar, also faced the volume increase despite both the cryptocurrency and the global market crash.
USD Coin (USDC) from Circle has reached a new all-time-height at $568 million in circulation over last week and climbed to the 14th-ranked with a market capitalization of $619 million for the moment of writing.
Circle co-founder Jeremy Allaire tweeted that he is fascinated to witness a high demand for a quality USD liquidity and that demand for internet dollars should increase significantly.
Another stablecoin Paxos Standard (PAX) has also enjoyed gains in market capitalizations and currently is ranked as the 27th largest digital currency asset, according to the data of Coinmarketcap. The stablecoin claims it has reached the market cap of $395 million during the black Thursday night.
Althought, the stablecoin witnessed almost a double increase in volume during the March 12, the current market capitalization of PAX is nearly $224 million, according to the data of Coinmarketcap.
PAX stablecoin is one of the major US Dollar-pegged stablecoins backed 1:1 by the US Dollar. Based on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, Paxos Standard (PAX) is the third most widely traded stablecoin in the crypto market after Tether (USDT) and Circleโs USD Coin (USDC).
In general, according to data from the Stablecoin Index, the entire market capitalization of all stablecoins has grown up to more than $6 billion during the downfall of the markets.
Last Thursday the virtual currency market experienced a massive sell-off due to coronavirus pandemic and oil price war, sparked by the Saudi Arabia and Russia. The Bitcoin dropped below $4k for a brief period of time. Meanwhile, other digital assets fell even further.