Domestic stablecoin trading volumes have plummeted to one-fifth of their levels at the end of last year. While discussions on institutionalizing stablecoins are active, their practical use in the real economy remains limited, leading to a decline in transaction volumes, unlike overseas.
According to the office of Park Sung-hoon, a People Power Party lawmaker on the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee, the average daily trading volume of stablecoins (USDT, USDC, and USDS) on the five major domestic cryptocurrency exchanges reached 238 billion won as of June this year. This represents an 80% drop compared to 1.0229 trillion won in December of last year.
The average daily trading volume of domestic stablecoins gradually increased from 174.1 billion won in July last year to 304.1 billion won in October, 638.1 billion won in November, and 1.0229 trillion won in December.
Afterwards, it decreased from 923.8 billion won in January of this year, 879.4 billion won in February, to 300 billion won in March to May, and even shrunk to 200 billion won in June.
This trend is largely due to the overall slowdown in the virtual asset market this year. According to the Bank of Korea, the daily average domestic virtual asset trading volume reached 3.2 trillion won in June, a significant decrease from 17.1 trillion won in December of last year.
The amount of domestic virtual asset holdings also decreased to 89.2 trillion won as of the end of June, compared to the peak of 121.8 trillion won at the end of January.
The limitations of stablecoin utilization, particularly compared to overseas markets, are cited as a reason for the decline in transaction volume. Overseas, the market capitalization and transaction volume of stablecoins are increasing as more people use them to purchase other virtual assets or in real-world economic activities.
Among the top 10 domestic virtual assets by actual market capitalization, none are stablecoins, but USDT and USDC rank 3rd and 7th, respectively, overseas.
There are also regional differences. According to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report, North America had the highest stablecoin trading volume last year, reaching $445 billion, followed by Asia-Pacific ($426 billion), Europe ($334 billion), Africa and the Middle East ($200 billion), and Latin America and the Caribbean ($156 billion).
- Reporter Park Min-joo
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