Stablecoins

    USDC vs USDT vs DAI

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    Volume

    The volume refers to the cumulative amount in USD that has been involved in swaps relating to a particular stablecoin. Therefore, in the chart below, you will see the volumes for USDT, USDC, and DAI since the beginning of May 2022 on Sushiswap.

    Swap Count

    The next metric to look at is the swap count. Similar to volume, we will count swaps in and out of each stablecoin but this time by transaction id. Meaning we will count every transaction as one. Let's look at the chart below which depicts the swap count for all three stablecoins since the first day of May 1, 2022.

    TVL

    Next, is total value locked, also known as TVL. TVL refers to the amount of stablecoin value locked in the Sushiswap ecosystem (in this context). Looking at the table below, we can see that USDC has the highest TVL with $58, followed by $DAI ($35M) and USDT ($27M).

    New Users

    Last but not least, we shall look at new users coming into the Sushiswap ecosystem and the first stablecoin they interacted with.

    Conclusion

    Stablecoins are the lifeblood of the decentralized economy as they bring some stability among the wide range of volatile assets. Currently, there are three major stablecoins in the crypto capital markets, namely, USDC, USDT, and DAI. We shall look at these three stablecoins under 4 different metrics -- volume, swap count, total value locked, and new wallets -- within Sushiswap and argue which could succeed in comparison to the now depegged $UST.

    Sushiswap is a decentralized exchange that facilitates the seamless exchange of crypto assets in a permissionless manner. Without much ado, let's take a look at the metrics and what insights we can draw from them.

    We can see that USDC is the most popular stablecoin on Sushiswap by volume. On May 12, when UST was crashing, USDC, USDT, and DAI all hit their peak with $148.1M, $56.5M, and $53.4M respectively.

    From the chart above, we can see that the divisions are quite clear. USDC has the most interactions, followed by USDT, and DAI. Once again, we can see that all three stablecoins peaked in swap count on May 12, 2022.

    36% of new users interacted with USDC, and 31% interacted with USDT and DAI respectively. We can see that this metric seems to be evenly distributed so it is fair to conclude that new users do not necessarily prefer one stablecoin over another.

    Owing to the data presented in the charts above and the inferences that have been drawn from them, I believe USDC is the best bet to be the go-to stablecoin for the crypto ecosystem. Why? Because it is fairly safer since it is completely backed and chances of a bank run are negligible. Moreover, it is fairly scalable as it was able to absorb the funds from investors seeking stability. One major disadvantage of USDC is that is backed by a central entity and may be subjected to regulatory scrutiny which is against the ethos of crypto.