USDT market capitalization surpasses 83 billion USD, but active users have significantly decreased.

Recently, the market capitalization of USDT has continued to rise, once again breaking through the $83 billion threshold, almost approaching the historical high point set in early May 2022. However, unlike before, this time the increase in USDT's market capitalization has not driven the overall market trend upward, and mainstream crypto assets like BTC are still in a phase of consolidation.

After a comprehensive analysis of the changes in USDT market capitalization, on-chain data, and trading data, we have identified the following key points:

1. As of June 3, the total market capitalization of stablecoins is approximately USD 129.216 billion, a slight decrease of 0.87% over the past month and a decline of 6.22% this year.

2. The current market capitalization of USDT is approximately 83.212 billion USD, accounting for 64.40% of the total market capitalization of stablecoins, making it nearly three times the market capitalization of USDC. The market capitalization of USDT has increased by 1.41% in the past month and has significantly risen by 25.63% since the beginning of this year, approaching its historical peak.

3. Since the beginning of this year, the market capitalization of TRC-20 USDT has grown by 34.90%, while the market capitalization of ERC-20 USDT has grown by 19.23%. The growth trend of TRC-20 USDT is more significant, with a larger increment and faster growth rate, currently accounting for 54.07% of the total market capitalization of USDT.

4. Although the market capitalization of USDT is close to the highs seen in early May 2022, its internal composition has changed, with TRC-20 USDT gradually gaining dominance. This change is crucial for understanding the market reactions triggered by fluctuations in USDT's market capitalization, as there are certain differences in the application scenarios of TRC-20 USDT and ERC-20 USDT.

5. Since the beginning of this year, the daily on-chain transaction volume of TRC-20 USDT has shown a significant upward trend, with an increase of about 71.76% year-to-date. In contrast, the daily on-chain transaction volume of ERC-20 USDT has slightly decreased, with a drop of about 0.25%. The average daily on-chain transaction volume of both types of USDT is approximately 6.917 billion USDT.

6. Currently, the stock of ERC-20 USDT in the exchange is about 9.29 billion USDT, reaching a new high for the year. However, its daily trading volume shows a significant downward trend. This month's average daily trading volume is only 0.0367 billion USDT, a decrease of 11.35% compared to May.

7. The amount of ERC-20 USDT currently locked in smart contracts accounts for approximately 15.03% of its circulating supply, which is equivalent to the level at the end of July 2022 and is lower than the proportion when the market capitalization was similar in early May 2022 (around 20% at that time). This suggests that, at the same market capitalization scale, the current scale of USDT in DeFi may be lower than before.

8. The number of independent active addresses on the ERC-20 USDT chain is currently about 56,800, which is lower than the average daily independent active addresses of 87,000 this year, showing an overall downward trend. This suggests that the active user base of USDT may have decreased.

The total market capitalization of USDT has surpassed 83.2 billion USD, with the market capitalization of TRC-20 USDT increasing significantly by about 35% this year.

As of June 3, the total market capitalization of stablecoins is approximately 12.92 billion USD. Among them, USDT has the largest market capitalization, about 8.32 billion USD, accounting for 64.40% of the total market capitalization. USDC has not seen significant improvement after the liquidity crisis in March, with a current market capitalization of about 2.87 billion USD, accounting for 22.26% of the total market capitalization, which is about 1/3 of USDT's market capitalization. Although the market capitalizations of BUSD, DAI, TUSD, USDP, and FRAX all exceed 1 billion USD, there is still a significant gap compared to USDT and USDC. USDT remains the absolute leader in the stablecoin market.

From the trend, the total market capitalization of stablecoins has slightly decreased by 0.87% compared to 130.363 billion USD a month ago, and has decreased by 6.22% compared to 137.792 billion USD at the beginning of this year, showing an overall downward trend. Most stablecoins, such as USDC, BUSD, and DAI, are consistent with the overall trend, with market capitalizations declining to varying degrees over the past month and since the beginning of the year.

Among the stablecoins with larger market capitalization, only USDT, USDD, LUSD, and MAI have seen an increase in market capitalization against the trend. Among them, USDT has the largest market capitalization and the most significant growth. Data shows that the market capitalization of USDT has increased by 1.41% from $82.052 billion a month ago and has surged by 25.63% from $66.237 billion at the beginning of this year.

From the perspective of USDT's multi-chain composition, the total authorized amounts of TRC-20 USDT (based on Tron) and ERC-20 USDT (based on Ethereum) are currently the highest, approximately 46.12 billion USDT and 36.28 billion USDT respectively, far exceeding the total authorized amounts issued on other public chains. Considering the authorized but unissued amounts, the actual issued amounts of TRC-20 USDT and ERC-20 USDT are 44.962 billion USDT and 36.199 billion USDT respectively, accounting for 97.61% of the total actual issuance of USDT.

TRC-20 USDT and ERC-20 USDT almost make up the entire market capitalization of USDT. Since the beginning of this year, the market capitalizations of these two types of USDT have been continuously rising. Among them, the market capitalization of TRC-20 USDT increased from 31.717 billion USDT to 42.790 billion USDT, with a growth rate of about 34.90%; the market capitalization of ERC-20 USDT rose from 27.996 billion USDT to 33.380 billion USDT, with a growth rate of about 19.23%. In fact, since October 2022, the market capitalization changes of these two types of USDT have begun to diverge, with TRC-20 USDT showing a more significant growth trend, larger increments, and faster growth rate.

Recently, the market capitalization of USDT has returned to the high point near early May 2022, but this hides a change in the internal composition of USDT, with TRC-20 USDT increasingly dominating. This change in composition will play an important role in understanding the market reactions triggered by the changes in USDT's market capitalization, as there are certain differences in the application scenarios of TRC-20 USDT and ERC-20 USDT.

The average daily on-chain trading volume exceeded 6.9 billion USDT, exchange inventory increased, but trading volume declined.

From the perspective of underlying usage, since the beginning of this year, the daily on-chain trading volume of TRC-20 USDT has shown a significant upward trend, increasing from 414,200 USDT at the beginning of the year to the current 711,400 USDT, an increase of approximately 71.76%, with an average daily trading volume of about 9.37 billion USDT.

In comparison, the daily on-chain transaction volume of ERC-20 USDT shows a slight downward trend, decreasing from 1.537 billion USDT at the beginning of the year to the current 1.541 billion USDT, with a decline of approximately 0.25%. The average daily transaction volume is about 4.464 billion USDT. Overall, the average daily on-chain transaction volume of these two types of USDT is approximately 6.917 billion USDT.

From a segmented market perspective, since the beginning of this year, the stock of ERC-20 USDT in exchanges has shown a significant upward trend, currently around 9.29 billion USDT, the highest this year, up 34.62% from the year's lowest point of 6.90 billion USDT.

However, interestingly, while the supply of ERC-20 USDT in exchanges is increasing, the daily trading volume is showing a clear shrinking trend. This year, the average daily trading volume of ERC-20 USDT is 0.742 billion USDT, and after April, the average daily trading volume has been below the annual average every month. This month, the average daily trading volume of ERC-20 USDT is only 0.367 billion USDT, a month-on-month decrease of 11.35% compared to May, and May also saw a month-on-month decline of 22.47%. Affected by the liquidity crisis of stablecoins in March, the month-on-month decline in April was as high as 51.05%.

It can be seen that although there is more USDT in the exchange, it has not promoted centralized market trading, which may also be one of the reasons why the market capitalization of USDT has not reflected in the coin price.

From the perspective of the USDT locked in DeFi protocols, the inflow situation is also unclear. Overall, the amount of ERC-20 USDT currently locked in smart contracts accounts for about 15.03% of its circulating supply, which is equivalent to the level at the end of July 2022 and lower than the proportion when the market capitalization was similar at the beginning of May 2022 (around 20% at that time). This indicates that, at the same market capitalization scale, the current scale of USDT in DeFi may be lower than before.

From the recent changes in the locked amount of USDT in specific protocols, on Ethereum, the locked amount of USDT in Uniswap V3, Compound, and AAVE V2 has increased in the last month, with Uniswap V3 showing the best growth at 31.13%, which is quite noticeable. Compared to the beginning of this year, it has also increased by 15.82%, but when compared to last year, the locked amount of USDT still shows a significant decline. On Tron, the best growth is from JustMoney, where the locked amount of USDT has increased by 46.30% in the last month, and the increase this year is 60.51%. The changes in the locked amount of USDT across different protocols vary significantly.

Looking at the data from multiple dimensions, the recently issued USDT has partially flowed into centralized exchanges, but this has not promoted actual trading, and the trading volume has continued to shrink. A small portion has flowed into DeFi protocols, but it has been concentrated in a few leading protocols, and the overall scale is still lower than when the market capitalization was the same before. Another possibility is that the newly issued TRC-20 USDT has flowed into other payment scenarios.

BTC price stabilizes with an upward trend, fluctuations decrease, and the decline in the number of independent active addresses on the USDT chain is more pronounced.

The overall environment of the current market may also be a reason why the growth of USDT's market capitalization has not reflected in the changes in coin prices. On one hand, many mainstream assets, represented by BTC, are currently in a horizontal adjustment phase. Market data shows that although BTC's price has been on an upward trend this year, this trend is approaching a "stair" shape, with a long platform construction period and a decrease in the daily average price fluctuations. In this case, funds may choose to continue watching. This is reflected in the data, where the stock of exchanges is growing but the trading volume is decreasing.

On the other hand, during the market consolidation phase, user activity has also declined. The number of on-chain independent active addresses has always been a good window to observe user scale. From the trend of the number of independent active addresses on the BTC chain this year, it has generally remained basically stable, with a noticeable rebound after May, but it did not reach a new high for the year. Overall, the scale of active users for BTC has not seen significant growth.

In contrast, the number of independent active addresses on the ERC-20 USDT chain this year has shown a significant downward trend, currently at approximately 56,800, a marked decrease from the highest single-day independent active address count of 149,900 earlier this year, and also far from this year's average daily independent active address count of 87,000. This suggests that the active user base of USDT may have shrunk.