The crypto market is experiencing rare dynamics: the capitalization of the largest stablecoin, USDT, fell by $1.5 billion in a month — the most significant decline since December 2022. According to Artemis Analytics and Bloomberg, the total capitalization of stablecoins has grown to $304.6 billion since the beginning of February, but USDT has dropped to about $183 billion (minus 0.8% for the month). At the same time, USDC rose by almost 5% to reach $75.7 billion, while the third-largest stablecoin, USDS from Sky, saw an increase of about 10% to $6.8 billion.
Experts attribute the outflow of USDT to the general sell-off in the cryptocurrency market. USDT is more often used as a means of storing value and making everyday payments, whereas USDC is popular in DeFi for transactions and liquidity. According to Bloomberg, the situation resembles preparations for the largest monthly decline since the FTX collapse.
Since the beginning of the year, the stablecoin market has shown mixed dynamics: USDT is losing share, USDC is steadily growing, and USDS Sky is noticeably increasing. As of mid-February, the overall picture remains high in terms of volume and demand for stablecoins, but the distribution of demand among issuers is changing.