On-chain data Interpretation Stablecoin Wars: Who is winning the war?

原文标题：《 如火如荼的「Stablecoin 战争」 》

Ben Giove is a Bankless contributor

South Wind, Unitimes

Get ready, Stablecoin, the battle is on.

Stablecoin has become one of the largest and fastest growing segments of the Crypto industry, with a total market cap of over $180 billion -- a 109% increase over the past year and 1,748% increase over the past two years.

Above: Supply growth of major stablecoins. Source: The Block

The potential market for stablecoins in this sector of the crypto economy is in the trillions of dollars, and as a form of "money" these assets benefit from huge network effects from liquidity. Because of this, early Stablecoin winners can easily become entrenched incumbents.

Which of course raises the question: Who is winning the Stablecoin war? Which stablecoins are growing the fastest? Which stablecoins are the most fluid and adopted among the various on-chain use cases?

Let's find out.

01. Key players

Before delving into some data to understand the state of the current Stablecoin wars, let's take a brief look at the seven major Stablecoin/ currency issuers so that we can get a high-level understanding of how these stablecoins operate and some of the drivers behind their success.

For our purposes, we'll talk about USDC, USDT, BUSD, UST, DAI, FRAX, FEI, and OHM (although & NBSP; OHM is not a Stablecoin, but an "unanchored currency").

While these seven Stablecoins are not necessarily the largest in terms of market capitalization, they are (for reasons described below) best positioned to maintain or grow market share and are among the most competitive verticals in the DeFi industry.

1. Centralized Stablecoin: USDC, USDT, and BUSD

USDC, USDT and BUSD are currently the three largest centralized stablecoins. All three are issued by off-chain entities and claim to be backed 1:1 by fiat collateral (i.e., "real" dollars).

Although this Stablecoin design is more opaque and fully centralized, it has proved to be the most scalable among stablecoins, as the total circulating supply of these three stablecoins is $144.2 billion, accounting for 80% of the industry. While the three Stablecoins cannot be audited on the chain, they all, to varying degrees, publish their own proof of reserves, such as Circle, a USDC issuer, and Tether, a USDT issuer, holding low-risk, short-term assets such as commercial paper in order to generate income for themselves.

In particular, the deep mobility of USDT and USDC allows these two stablecoins to establish large network effects, and USDC is the most widely used Stablecoin on the chain (more on that later).

2. Decentralized Stablecoin: UST, DAI, FRAX, FEI and OHM

1) UST

UST is a decentralized algorithm Stablecoin, pegged to the US dollar.

UST employs a simple cast and destroy mechanism to maintain stability: to cast UST, the user must destroy LUNA (a native asset of Terra blockchain) of equal value; Similarly, users can redeem their LUNA by destroying UST of the same value.

As we have seen, UST is not backed by any external collateral -- instead, it relies on arbitrage to maintain its stability: when UST trades at a price above its anchor rate (i.e., $1), market participants have an incentive to expand its supply and lower its price by minting new UST, and vice versa.

However, Terra recently raised reserve funds from BTC and Avalanche native Token AVAX (with a total value of approximately $1.75 billion) through the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) to help support the anchoring of UST, The Stablecoin is supported by 9.3% of these reserves.

Despite its own significant set of risks, this design has enabled UST to rapidly expand its circulation supply to more than $18.65 billion, the third largest of all Stablecoins and already more than twice as large in supply as its nearest competitor, DAI.

2) DAI

DAI is a decentralized, dollar-linked Stablecoin released by Maker DAO. DAI is based on an overpledge mechanism whereby users can deposit various forms of collateral (such as ETH) into a vault to create DAI Stablecoin. Users must keep their mortgage position overcollateralized because the collateral can be liquidated if it falls below a set collateral rate (which varies by the collateral asset).

DAI is one of the oldest and most proven stablecoins in DeFi, while Maker is known for its strong, decentralized governance system and best-in-class risk management policies. This, along with the extensive integration of a number of DeFi protocols, has grown DAI's market cap to over $8.13 billion, making it the 5th most valuable of all Stablecoins and the 2nd most valuable of decentralized Stablecoins.

3) FRAX

FRAX 是一种去中心化的、与美元挂钩的 Stablecoin。顾名思义，该 Stablecoin 是一种部分抵押算法 Stablecoin，其系统中的抵押品额 (抵押率 (CR)) 是动态变化的，由市场根据 FRAX 的供应和需求来设定。与 UST 类似，FRAX Stablecoin 供应的一部分是无抵押的，通过 FXS Token  (该协议的铸币税和治理 Token  ) 保持稳定性，当新的 FRAX 被创建和铸造以满足赎回需求时，FXS 会被销毁。

Frax also uses what is known as an algorithmic market-making program (AMO) to set monetary policy. These AMO agreements allow FRAX and its reserves to be deployed in various DeFi agreements, such as Curve, Uniswap and Aave, to generate revenue and help achieve strategic objectives.

FRAX's 'best of both worlds' design, combined with the use of AMO and a number of partners, has increased the supply of this Stablecoin to over $2.6 billion, the 7th highest market value of all stablecoins, and the 2nd highest growth rate of the seven stablecoins in the last 6 months.

4) FEI

FEI is also a decentralized Stablecoin, pegged to the US dollar and published by FEI Protocol. The Stablecoin is fully mortgaged and the user can cast a new FEI by saving various assets, which can be redeemed 1:1 at any time.

FEI only accepts decentralized collateral and ETH and LUSD are the majority of its supporting assets.

FEI 帮助推广了「协议控制的价值」(PCV) 的概念，因为它的储备金由 TRIBE Token  持有者通过去中心化的治理进行管理 (且未来将通过一个受管理的 Balancer 池来管理)。这种 PCV 被部署到各种 DeFi 协议中以赚取收益，而协议本身可以使用超额的储备金来铸造 FEI (即协议拥有的 FEI (POF))，为其选择的 DeFi 场所提供流动性。

Although FEI is "only" the 11th largest Stablecoin with a market cap of $566 million, the deal is worth $878 million of the total value of PCV and POF. This, combined with the synergy of their merger with Rari Capital (the team behind permitless money market protocol Fuse) to form the Tribe DAO, should give Fei the resources they need to grow their market share.

5) OHM

The OHM is a fully secured, freely floating currency issued by Olympus DAO. This means that the OHM is not a Stablecoin, but rather allows its price to be determined by the open market.

Olympus 利用债券机制和质押机制为其金库积累资产，并发行 OHM。就债券机制而言，协议出售折扣的 OHM (在几天内授予)，以换取各种资产，比如 Stablecoin 或与 OHM 配对的 LP Token  。就质押机制而言，OHM 持有者可以质押他们的 Token  以获得新发行的 OHM，这有助于最小化债券机制带来的稀释。

These mechanisms had a significant impact on its price, while the model pioneered by Olympus gave the deal 99.2% OHM liquidity and allowed it to accumulate over $337 million in Treasury funds. As with Fei and FRAX, OHM holders can control these reserves to be deployed in different locations to generate revenue or further strategic objectives.

The funding will allow Olympus to continue to play a significant role in the Stablecoin space and, in the long term, help push its market cap above its current $368 million mark.

The chart below shows the market value, market share, and market value growth rate of the seven stablecoins over the last 3 months and the last 6 months:

As shown in the table above, UST and FRAX have been the fastest growing over the past six months, increasing their supply by 547% and 300%, respectively, over the past two quarters. UST continued to expand at its fastest pace over the past three months, increasing its market value by 65 per cent. This increased UST's market share in the total Stablecoin supply from 2.08% in November 2021 to 10.34%, a nearly fivefold increase.

此外，相对于整体 Stablecoin 市场而言，UST 和 FRAX 高于平均水平的增长率是另一个例证，表明带有算法组件的 Stablecoin 由于更有效的资本效率，可以扩大规模。通过相互合作 (比如在 Curve 上的 4pool 方面的合作)，这两种 Stablecoin 可能会继续看到巨大的增长。4pool 是 Frax 和 Terra 在 Curve 上创建的一个由 UST、Frax、USDC 和 USDT 组成的 Stablecoin 池，旨在成为 Curve 上的基础交易对。

Stablecoin market cap growth rate rankings

Gold: UST

Silver: FRAX

Bronze: USDC

02. Stablecoin battlefield

Now that we've introduced the main players in this Stablecoin war, let's take a look at where they stand on the front lines of the competition and where they stand.

To do this, we compare the eight assets listed above (USDC, USDT, BUSD, UST, DAI, FRAX, FEI and OHM) and MIM and LUSD (the 6th and 12th largest Stablecoin by market cap, respectively).

为了评估每种 Stablecoin 的采用和使用情况，我们将研究 DEX (去中心化交易所)、货币市场以及跨链桥上的流动性和存款的构成。此外，我们还将研究 DAO 资产负债表上的 Stablecoin 持有量，并看看哪些 Stablecoin 被用于作为其他 Stablecoin 的支撑，以评估它们作为一种储备资产的可取性和采用程度。

1. Stablecoin fluidity of DEX

DEX (Decentralized Exchange) is at the heart of DeFi, facilitating asset exchange and liquidity flows across the DeFi ecosystem. As the mad popularity of Curve wars suggests, DEX is a key Stablecoin battleground, as the DEX's deep liquidity helps strengthen Stablecoin hooks and solidifies Stablecoin's position as a popular trade pair for other assets.

Let's look at the composition of Stablecoin liquidity on the five DEX with the highest TVL (Curve, Uniswap, Balancer, SushiSwap and Bancor) Look at the competitive landscape among these 10 stablecoins.

Based on the above table, we can see that USDC has the highest liquidity of $2.32 billion, accounting for 23.3% of the total liquidity of $10 billion of these five DEX Stablecoin companies, followed by FRAX (19.6%) and DAI (18.4%). It was $1.96 billion and $1.83 billion, respectively.

深入到每个交易平台的 Stablecoin 流动性的构成，我们可以看到，USDC 是迄今为止在 Uniswap 和 Balancer 上流动性最强的 Stablecoin ，分别占到这两个 DEX 上的 39.7% 和 45.8% 的 Stablecoin 流动性份额。如上图所示。

不出所料，Curve 一直是 DEX 中最具竞争力的 Stablecoin 战场，没有哪个 Stablecoin 协议占该交易所 Stablecoin 流动性的四分之一以上。

FRAX 是 Curve 平台上最具流动性的 Stablecoin，虽然可能有些令人惊讶，但这是有原因的，因为 FRAX 协议是 CVX 的最大持有者 (CVX 是 Convex Finance 的治理 Token  ，Convex 控制了大多数的 CRV Token  ，因此也控制了 Curve 上的 CRV Token  奖励的流向)，并且向 CVX 持有人支付了数千万美元贿赂，以便将进一步的流动性导向 Curve 上的 FRAX 配对池。

Stablecoin's on-chain mobility rankings:

Gold: USDC

Silver: FRAX

Bronze: DAI

2. DeFi money market Stablecoin deposits

Like DEX, DeFi money markets (Aave, Compound, etc.) are one of the most critical components of an on-chain financial system, helping Crypto borrow, price risk, And (sometimes) curb DeFi Degens' insatiable thirst for leverage.

让我们来看看以太坊上最大的四个货币市场 Aave、Compound、Fuse 和 Euler 上的存款，以便了解每种 Stablecoin 相对于其他 Stablecoin 在这些货币市场中的存款量。

从上表我们可以看到，USDC 是这四大货币市场中存款最多的 Stablecoin ，超过 48.2 亿美元，占四个平台 95.1 亿美元 Stablecoin 存款总额的 50.7%。DAI 和 USDT 分别以 23.2 亿美元 (24.4%) 和 20.5 亿美元 (21.6%) 的存款额排名第二和第三。

Fuse 已经被证明是 Stablecoin 中竞争最激烈的市场，因为 FEI、FRAX 和 OHM 在该平台上的 Stablecoin 存款份额最大。考虑到该协议的性质，这并不特别令人惊讶，因为在 Fei 和 Fuse 之间有大量独立的和专门的池，以及二者之间紧密的联系，因为这两个项目都位于 Tribe DAO 的保护伞下。

Stablecoin money market deposits:

Gold: USDC

Silver: DAI

Bronze: USDT

3. Stablecoin liquidity and locking value in cross-chain Bridges

Blockchain "Bridges" are fast becoming one of the most important infrastructures in the multi-chain crypto economy. While each has its own unique risk profile and trust assumptions, the popularity of Bridges has exploded with the rise of alternative L1 chain and L2 networks that provide users with a quick and relatively straightforward way to move assets between networks.

基于这一点，让我们看看在五个受欢迎的「桥」协议 (Synapse、Wormhole、Stargate、 Multichain 和 Hop) 上哪些 Stablecoin 的流动性最强，和/或存款量最多，这样我们就可以了解在这些多链经济中，哪些 Stablecoin 的流动性最强，使用最多。

Data source: DeepDAO

Somewhat surprisingly, based on the table above, MIM is the most popular Stablecoin of the five Bridges, followed by UST and USDC with liquidity/lock-in values of $1.07 billion, $1.04 billion and $1.03 billion, respectively.

Data source: DeepDAO

However, a closer look reveals that these numbers are somewhat distorted, as both MIM and UST are only supported by one of the five "Bridges" : MIN is only supported by Multichain  Supported. UST is supported only by Wormhole. Also, we can see that while USDC ranks third overall in liquidity/lock-in value, it has the largest market share on Stargate, Synapse and Hop, and second on Wormhole and Multichain.

Stablecoin rankings in multi-chain:

Gold: the MIM

Silver: UST

Bronze: USDC

4. Stablecoin holdings of DAO Treasury

衡量 Stablecoin 采用情况的另一个重要用例是将其用于作为金库资产。虽然许多协议的大部分资产负债表都是其原生治理 Token  ，但 DAO (去中心化自治组织) 越来越多地将其持有的金库资产分散到波动性较小的资产中。

Let's see how these 10 stablecoins perform in this respect by looking at the amount of stablecoins held in DAO's vault.

从上表中我们所看到的，USDC 占了被追踪这些 DAO 的 Stablecoin 持有总价值的 49.5%，也即在它们的资产负债表上有 4.775 亿美元的 USDC Stablecoin。USDC 也是被最多数量的 DAO 组织所持有的 Stablecoin ，有多达 92 个 DAOs 金库中持有 USDC 资产。DAI 和 USDT 分别以 22.7% 和 16.7% 的份额位居第二和第三。

Among assets other than USDC, DAI, or USDT, OHM dominates, with a total value of $47.5 million on three DAOs' balance sheets, while FEI is held by seven DAOs.

Stablecoin holdings in DAO Treasury:

Gold: USDC

Silver: DAI

Bronze: USDT

5. Currency reserves

The final key function of a Stablecoin is as a reserve for other currencies. As stablecoins become more tested and more widely used as a reserve currency for their competitors, their lack of volatility increases the ease of risk management and also helps align incentives to encourage collaboration among Stablecoin issuers.

With this in mind, let's look at the 10 stablecoins we listed above by looking at the reserves and collateral of 8 decentralized stablecoins (DAI, FRAX, FEI, OHM, alUSD, MAI, agEUR and UST). See how popular each Stablecoin is as a reserve for the other stablecoins.

从上表中我们可以看到，USDC 是最受其他 Stablecoin 欢迎的储备金，占作为储备金的 Stablecoin 总额的 83.7%。排在后面的是 DAI、UST 和 LUSD，分别为 8.1%、5.7% 和 1.4%。

Reserve Rankings:

Gold: USDC

Silver: DAI

Bronze: UST

The Stablecoin war has come

Current winner: USDC

USDC is the most liquid Stablecoin in DEX, the most highly deposited Stablecoin in DeFi money market, the third most liquid Stablecoin in cross-chain "bridge", and the most widely used Stablecoin in DAO Treasury. And the most popular Stablecoin in the reserve of other stablecoins. Obviously, although USDC is the second largest Stablecoin, it is the most used on-chain Stablecoin in Crypto.

While other smaller Stablecoin players have been able to gain market share in a single battleground (FRAX is Curve's most liquid Stablecoin, FEI is Fuse's highest Stablecoin deposit), UST is the only Stablecoin supported by the Wormhole cross-chain bridge, but the USDC is currently the clear "winner" of the Stablecoin wars.

There is hope, however, for those who favour decentralised Stablecoin. Two decentralized alternatives, UST and FRAX, are currently growing much faster than USDC, despite their smaller market capitalization.

Not to mention the arrival of other new challengers like Near's USN and Tron's USDD Stablecoin algorithms on L1 chains, And CPI-anchored Stablecoin like Frax's FPI and Volt Protocol's Volt, which could shake things up. Stablecoin's competitive landscape.

While USDC may have an early lead, we're just at the beginning of a long Stablecoin battle.

** This article represents the views of the original author only and does not constitute any investment opinion or recommendation.

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