Relevant Trends

DAI & USDS: Market Cap and Trading Volumes

MakerDAO Completes Rebrand to Sky, Introduces New Stablecoin, Sky Dollar

● On August 27th, the issuer of the DAI stablecoin, Maker DAO, completed its rebrand to Sky introducing its new stablecoin, Sky Dollar (USDS) and governance token, Sky. Since USDS went live on September 20, Sky Dollar has reached a circulating supply of $458mn (as of the 24th), as users voluntarily convert their DAI for USDS. Holders of USDS tokens can earn 6.25% in yield from the Sky Savings Rate module, an overhauled version of the DAI Savings Module.

● Meanwhile, the market capitalisation of DAI fell 2.83% to $5.10bn in September, while the trading volume on CEXs for the DAI pairs fell 43.8% to $893mn as of the 24th. Both DAI and MKR will exist as legacy tokens in the new Sky protocol, offering options to users who prefer a stablecoin without a freeze function.

EURCV: On-Chain Transfer and CEX Volumes

Societe Generale’s EUR CoinVertible (EURCV) to Expand to Solana Blockchain

● On September 20th, Societe Generale announced their plans to deploy their EUR CoinVertible stablecoin on the Solana blockchain “to expand its use cases within DeFi ecosystem”. Since launching on Ethereum in November, the demand for the stablecoin has failed to live up to its expectation with EURCV on-chain transfer volume reaching $2.79mn in September, largely concentrating among its 15 non-exchange wallet addresses.

● The stablecoin is available for trading on Bitstamp, however, the trading volumes remain subdued with its EUR and USDT pairs recording a volume of $236k and $54k in September.

Reserves Composition: US Treasury Bills

Centralised Stablecoins to Incur Loss in Interest Income as Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rate

● With the top five centralised stablecoins holding combined US Treasury Bills of nearly $125bn, accounting for nearly 80.2% of their reserves, the recent Federal Reserve decision to cut interest rates for the first time since March 2020 is set to result in $625mn in lost annual interest income for each 50bps cut.

● Based on their latest attestation reports, Tether holds nearly $93.2bn in US Treasury bills and repurchase agreements, which contributed to the majority of $5.2bn net profit in H1 2024. The second largest stablecoin, USDC holds $28.7bn worth of US Treasury bills via their Circle Reserve Fund, while FDUSD, PYUSD and TUSD hold US Treasury assets worth $1.83bn, $634mn, $502mn respectively.

e-CNY: Cumulative Transaction Volume

Digital Yuan Transaction Volume Reaches 7 Trillion Yun

● As per the latest report from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the cumulative transaction volume exchanged using digital yuan (e-CNY) has reached 7tn RMB ($988bn) by the end of June 2024. This represents a growth of 6.10% from the previous month and a 300% increase from the transaction volume reported in June 2023.

● Reportedly, the majority of the transaction activity for e-CNY is used for business activities while consumers continue to favour existing payment systems such as WeChat Pay and Alipay. The Digital Yuan remains one of 44 CBDCs in pilot programmes with the Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria the only countries to launch a CBDC fully.