Circle's USD Coin grows as Tether loses its market share

Ever since 2017, Tether (USDT) has been the biggest and most dominant stablecoin in the crypto industry. It even managed to climb to the position of the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. However, the project's competitors have started catching up as of late, and USDT has actually started losing a noticeable market share to projects like USDC.

USDT market share decreases below 75%

According to recent figures provided by CoinMetrics, Tether's market share recently dropped below 75% for the first time since it was created. While this is not great news for Tether, it is good for the crypto industry. It shows that traders are willing to explore alternative stablecoins and not fully rely on a single centralized provider for USD-pegged assets.

As mentioned, Tether's biggest rival right now is USD Coin (USDC), created by Circle. The coin's market share has gone above 15%, which is a new ATH for USDC.

The company reported that there are currently 5.1 billion USDC units in circulation, while other sources have reported a somewhat higher supply of 5.9 billion.

As for why is USDC rising so much right now, it is possible that the integration of the coin, as well as CirclePay service into Blockfolio's new trading app might be responsible.

Tether competitors are rising

While USDC has been issued by regulated financial institutions and backed by reserved assets, Tether is still controversial in this regard. This may very well be the reason why the world's largest stablecoin is currently losing ground to its competitors.

The company has refused to allow audits, which put it under the investigators by the US lawmakers. As things stand now, USDC may continue to grow and eat into Tether's share of the market in 2021, as well. Meanwhile, USDC, as well as other competitors, such as Dai and Binance USD (BUSD) are also seeing noticeable growth in usage and supply.