Stablecoin depeg hit USDC and DAI more than others: analysts

Circle and MakerDAO stablecoins have been more unstable than Tether and Binance over the past two years, according to a new report from S&P. Worldwide.

News Join us on social media

Dollar-pegged stablecoins are not immune to falling off their peg, but some, like Circle's USD Coin (USDC) and MakerDAO's Dai (DAI), have been more prone to unanchoring than others, according to S&P Global analysts.

A research article written in September by Dr. Cristina Polizu, Anoop Garg and Miguel de la Mata, looked at stablecoin pricing and unpegging for five major stablecoins: Tether (USDT), Binance USD (BUSD), Paxos (USDP), USDC and DAI.

The analysis found that USDC and DAI have spent more time below the dollar than USDT and BUSD over the past two years. During the longest and deepest unpeg event, USDC was below $0.90 for 23 minutes and DAI for 20 minutes.

However, USDT fell below $0.95 for only one minute, while BUSD price did not fall below $0.975 at all between June 2021 and June 2023.

Stablecoin stall by weather. Source: S&P Global

Additionally, de-anchor frequencies were much higher for USDC and DAI than for USDT and BUSD over the two-year period.

p>

Researchers noted that one-minute stall events “may be attributed to noise,” particularly for thresholds near $1. Longer depegging events were considered “more significant,” but the results still favored USDT over USDC.