Coinbase, the major US crypto exchange, believes that USD Coin (USDC) is the safest stablecoin in the market: “We believe USD Coin is a reliable and secure stablecoin,” said Coinbase’s statement. For that reason, it is now possible to exchange Tether (USDT) for USDC on the trading platform without trading costs. It goes without saying that Coinbase is the co-founder of USDC.
Switch to a trusted stablecoin: USD Coin (USDC). Now convert Tether (USDT) to USDC with zero fees.https://t.co/OObSqNWdpj
— Coinbase (@coinbase) December 8, 2022
Tether is big on Coinbase
Coinbase’s trading data tells us that Tether is the third most traded asset on the trading platform. USDT accounts for about 5 percent of trading volume on Coinbase.
A few days after the implosion of FTX, Tether also ran into trouble, eventually trading at 93 cents. Across the majority of trading pairs, USDT has reverted back to pegging the US dollar, but the coin is still trading at 99 cents on some trading pairs on Binance.
In late September, Tether was forced by a US judge in New York to be more transparent about its stablecoin coverage. The company is now also doing this by regularly sharing figures and information about the stablecoin. All in all, the company does not seem to have the full confidence of the market at the moment.
Binance ceases attack
Binance had also started some kind of attack against competing stablecoins not long ago. The company has its own stasblecoin: Binance USD (BUSD), which now also has a huge market share. To spice up that stablecoin, it forced people to exchange their USDC for BUSD on the platform, among other things.
That resulted in the market capitalization of Binance’s stablecoin jumping by several billion. On the other hand, that was obviously at the expense of USDC. In the meantime, however, Binance has stopped that automatic conversion on its platform, but it seems that Coinbase is now responding.
In principle, Coinbase says nothing about other stablecoins, at least not in a direct sense. It does suggest that USDC is the only truly stable stablecoin compared to USDT.