In brief
- Daily value transfers on Ethereum is now equal to Bitcoin.
- This is largely thanks to stablecoin transfers.
- Ethereum has established itself as the dominant platform for stablecoin issuance in the last year.
Ethereum has just reached parity with Bitcoin in terms of daily value transfer, according to data provided by blockchain analytics and market research platform Messari.
The daily value transfer for a blockchain is the total value of assets moved on that blockchain over the last day. In the case of Ethereum, this includes ether (ETH), as well as all the ERC-20 stablecoin tokens tracked by Messari. A large value for the daily value transfer indicates the blockchain is widely used, whereas a low value might indicate a stagnant or unpopular blockchain.
In the last year, Ethereum has gradually seen the amount of value transfer increase—climbing from around $0.3 billion per day in April 2019, up to more than $1.5 billion per day in April 2020. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has also seen a growth in daily value transfer—albeit to a lesser extent than Ethereum.
The bulk of this growth is attributed to the massive uptick in interest seen in stablecoin usage. In the first quarter of 2020 alone, newly issued stablecoins ballooned by over $8 billion in volume, which is only slightly lower than that issued throughout all of 2019. Likewise, stablecoins now account for around 80% of the daily transfer value on Ethereum, since three of the four most popular stablecoins (Tether, TrueUSD and USD Coin) are predominantly issued on Ethereum.
In the last year, Ethereum overtook Omni as the major platform for Tether (USDT), and has reclaimed lost ground against Tron (TRX) in the first quarter of 2020. The Ethereum platform also established itself as a hub for large transfers, with the average stablecoin transfer around twice as large as the average Bitcoin transfer.
Based on current trends, stablecoins are currently on track to quadruple the growth seen in 2019. If accurate, 2020 could be the first year in which Tether exceeds the market capitalization of Ethereum. And with the US printing money like there’s no tomorrow, it could well happen.