The total capitalisation of stablecoins increased by $8 billion in the last quarter, or almost twice as much as the previous period. By the end of the second quarter the value was $11.9 billion, and on Wednesday it approached $20 billion, according to Coin Metrics. Relative to the same point last year, the figure rose by 1,200%.
"It looks like 2020 is the year of the Stablecoins," said Paolo Ardoino, Technical Director of Tether.
In May, the total issue of stablecoins for the first time exceeded $10 billion. By the end of the third quarter, the value was $19.87 billion.
At the same time, the number of variations of such instruments is increasing. For example, Tether added support for the OmiseGo and Solana protocols, while USDC, which is the second largest in terms of capitalisation, is the Algorand blockbuster. USDC has also become the second most stablecoin, with an issue of over 1 billion units.
Ardoino argues that the primary driver of stablecoin growth over the last quarter has been the "explosion of decentralised finance" and the increasing number of hedge funds and over-the-counter platforms that are moving assets to USDT for "faster arbitration and response to market movements".
He states, however, that it is not easy to predict future trends in the stablecoin space. Based on continued demand, he expects them to continue to grow for at least the next few months.