Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Figure 1. Hourly Stablecoin Prices on Secondary Markets

Four line graphs, all tracking hourly prices of their respective stablecoin between March 1 and March 21. All Y-axes range from 88 cents to $1.02. Each graph has a red dotted line at one dollar and a black line tracking the stablecoin’s price to show deviations from the dollar.

Upper left graph tracks the price of BUSD. The price deviates the least from the dollar, with a slight rise above the dollar on March 13.

Upper right graph tracks the price of DAI. DAI’s value tracks with the dollar until March 11, at which point it dips sharply to just under ninety cents, climbs over the next day to around 98 cents, before falling below 93 cents and recovering to a dollar by March 14.

Lower left graph tracks the price of USDC. USDC’s value tracks a very similar trajectory to DAI, dropping below 90 cents on March 11, climbing over the next day to just under 99 cents, dropping again below 96 cents over the ensuing hours before finally recovering to the dollar by March 14.

Lower right graph tracks the price of USDT. USDT’s price stays at a dollar until March 11, at which point it rises to around $1.02 until March 14, after which point it remains slightly above the dollar for the rest of the observed time period, though never more than a fraction of a cent.

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Figure 2. Daily trading volumes on secondary markets over the first half of 2023

Upper graph: Tracks aggregate trading volumes on Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken. Y-axis ranges from $0 to $40 billion. Daily volumes hover between $10 billion and $30 billion for most of the first three months, before rising to a high of just over $40 billion in early March before decreasing to typical daily volumes in the high single digits to $20 billion range. While the high over the time period corresponds to the SVB collapse in early March, the spike in trading volume is not as dramatic as that of decentralized exchanges.

Lower graph: Tracks aggregate trading volume on Uniswap and Curve. Y-axis ranges from $0 to $20 billion. Daily trading volumes hover in the single-digit billions below $5 billion for the entire time period except for the two days after SVB’s collapse, at which point it spikes to above $20 billion. Graph shows that trading volumes spiked more significantly in the observed decentralized exchanges compared to in centralized exchanges.

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Figure 3. DAI and USDC minting and burning activity on Ethereum over selected windows

Two bar charts, left (DAI) and right (USDC) displaying millions of tokens burned and minted over three five-day time periods. For both charts, a cluster of three bars on the left charts tokens burned and a cluster of three bars charts tokens minted. Three time periods – January 10 to January 15, February 10 to February 15, and March 10 to March 15 – from lightest to darkest color are charted for each set. The key identifies bars in order from left to right.

Left: Bar chart for DAI ranging from 0 to over $3 billion tokens on the Y-axis. While minting and burning transactions over the January and February time periods was below $300 million for minting and burning, they are significantly higher for the March time window, to over $2 billion DAI tokens burned and over $3 billion DAI tokens minted in the March time window.

Right: Bar chart for USDC ranging from 0 to over $6 billion. Burning remained fairly stable over all three time periods, at around $6 billion worth of USDC burned for each. Minting transactions were around $6 billion for the January and February time periods. However, minting transactions decreased significantly to around $1 billion over the March time period.

Key takeaway between the two graphs is that DAI experienced significant spiked in both minting and burning during the SVB collapse compared to other time periods. However, USDC had relatively stable numbers except for a sharp decrease in minting during the SVB collapse.

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Figure 4. USDC primary market activity on Ethereum during de-pegging event

Six line graphs displaying numbers related to minting and burning transactions for USDC between March 10 and March 15 arranged in a three by two grid. Each of the three rows contains side-by-side plots for burning and minting activity for a specific measurement, described further below.

Top row: Displays hourly number of burn (left) and mint (right) transactions. Y-axes range from 0 to 40 for burn transactions and 0 to 10 for mint transactions. Burn transactions are typically between 10 and 30 until March 13, at which point it decreases to below 10 until a spike to 30 on March 15. Minting transactions are in the low single digits for the entire period. The lack of burn transactions between mid-day on March 13 until early March 15 appears to be the most noticeable pattern.

Middle row: Displays hourly number of tokens burned (left) and minted (right) in millions. Y-axes range from 0 to 800 million tokens for burning and 0 to just under 500 million tokens minting. Burns are generally below 100 million with four spikes to in the hundreds of millions. Mints are near-zero for the most part with one spike to around 500 million on March 12. No apparent pattern emerges.

Bottom row: Displays hourly average tokens per burn transaction (left) and mint transaction (right). Y-axes range from 0 to around 275 million tokens for burns and 0 to 150 million tokens for mints. Per-transaction averages spike twice, to above $250 million on March 14 and around $100 million on March, and spike once for minting transactions, to above $150 million on March 12. No apparent pattern emerges.

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Figure 5. Net flows from primary to secondary markets

Line graph charting the net flows from primary to secondary markets for four stablecoins from March 1 to March 20, displayed in billions of tokens. Chart shows BUSD (red solid line) experienced a net outflow of between 250 and 500 million from March 1 to March 4 before climbing to near even by March 7 and then remaining around zero for the rest of the time period. Dai (blue dashed line) remains at around zero until March 10-11, when net flows peak at 850 million before decreasing to between zero and negative 200 million between March 14 and March 18, at which it remains to around zero. USDC (black dotted line) fluctuates mostly above even until March 9 before dipping significantly negative on March 10 and March 13 and remaining below 0 for most of the rest of the time period. USDT (dark gray dot-dash line) remains mostly positive, with a high of over 1.5 billion on March 4. Overall, a mixed picture emerges. BUSD’s significant net flows in early March slowed over the observed time period, USDC experienced significant negative flows after SVB’s collapse, and DAI’s flows swung considerably. USDT was the only stablecoin that stayed mostly positive for the whole period.

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