At $34 billion, USDC’s market capitalization is at its highest level since March 2023, but the stablecoin lags well behind USDT, which boasts $117 billion.
USDC has staged a considerable comeback in 2024, with its market capitalization rising to $34 billion from its November 2023 low of $24 billion.
The stablecoin suffered a dizzying drop amid the Terra collapse in mid-2022. But it plummeted even further a year later following a brief depeg during the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, when it dropped to $32 billion on April 5 from $44 billion just a month earlier, according to CoinGecko.
The significant drop was widely attributed to Operation Choke Point 2.0, a concerted effort from the Biden administration and the banking system to effectively kick out crypto from the U.S.
Crypto investor Nic Carter signaled the operation that was underway, and how it pushed investors to turn their backs on USDC, instead favoring its top competitor, the offshore USDT.
The market capitalization of USDT spiked to $80 billion from $71 billion in the same time frame.
USDC Has Been Adding Use Cases
Hints that Biden’s administration – along with their acolytes in Congress–are loosening their death grip on the U.S. crypto industry means more investors are using USDC, although some experts claim it’s wishful thinking.
That’s not all, however.
USDC and its parent company, Circle, have been adding integrations and alliances across the industry. In August, Arbitrum Orbit added USDC as a custom gas token, which adds utility to the $1.6 billion USDC currently sitting inside the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Brazil’s largest neobank, Nubank, partnered with Circle in December 2023 to offer USDC access to the entity’s 80 million users.
Tether Still Dominates
For the stablecoin sector, it’s been impossible to keep up with Tether.
USDT continues to dominate the market by a wide margin, holding $117 billion of the $170 billion market capitalization, a whopping 68%.
If the next U.S. administration turns out to be genuinely pro-crypto, domestic stablecoins like USDC could get a boost and start giving Tether a run for its money.
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