According to CryptoPotato, stablecoins have experienced a significant increase in popularity among investors, with a 45% growth in active addresses and a 41% increase in transactions between the first and third quarters of this year. In contrast, decentralized finance (DeFi) saw a decline in daily active addresses and transactions. Stablecoins surpassed DeFi protocols in terms of transactions on various blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Optimism.
USDT continues to lead the stablecoin market in terms of market capitalization, active addresses, and transaction activity. It concluded Q3 with an average of 337,000 daily active addresses and 680,000 daily transactions. Although USDC maintained a lead over USDT in terms of volume for the third quarter, the gap has notably shrunk since Q1, primarily due to Silicon Valley Bank's (SVB) collapse and USDC's slight de-pegging of about $0.03. USDC experienced a significant volume decline, with a 62% decrease from Q1 to Q3.
In the DeFi sector, Uniswap is the only decentralized exchange (DEX) that has maintained stability since Q1 2023, despite the significant event of SVB's collapse. Uniswap experienced a 15% growth in active addresses and a 33% increase in transaction count during Q3, diverging from the broader DeFi trend. Staking is also gaining momentum within the DeFi subcategory, with the total staked Ether increasing from 23.7 million to 27.2 million in Q3. Liquid Staking, a concept that resembles distributing IOU tokens in exchange for staked assets, accounted for 37% of this increase. By the end of Q3, Lido DAO's protocol held 32% of the staked ETH, with its value growing from $7.6 billion to $8.8 billion, marking a 16% increase.
