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Whales Across These Five Chains Are Heavy On Stablecoins, Should You Be Too?

Crypto whales all across the board have been seemingly taking more conservative positions in stablecoins since the bear market started. This has evolved into larger holdings in dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies which have very low volatility. These digital assets have since become a safe haven for investors who are looking to escape highly volatile tokens but still keep their funds in the crypto market. 

Crypto Whales Move To Stablecoins

Usually, there has been a marked increase in the stablecoin holdings of the top Ethereum whales but this trend of moving into stablecoins seems to not be localized to just Ethereum whales alone. Data shows that the holdings of whales across 5 blockchains are increasingly skewing towards stablecoin holdings.

The 5 blockchains in this report are Ethereum, Fantom, BNB Chain, Avalanche, and Polygon, and takes a look at the holdings of the top 1,000 whales. The holdings of the largest whales across all of these chains are mostly in the native tokens of the chain, but stablecoins such as USDT and USDC are increasingly important to them.

For the top 1,000 ETH whales, USDC and USDT currently account for $842 million (26.9%) and $710 million (22.7%) of their holdings respectively. BNB Chain whales leaned even more heavily with BUSD making up 41.19% ($365 million) and USDT making up 16.22% ($144 million) of their holdings.

USDT market dominance at 7.68% | Source: Market Cap USDT Dominance on TradingView.com

Fantom (FTM) whales were more into USDC with 30.75% ($12 million) of their holdings in the stablecoin, and 4.67% ($1.8 million) in fUSDT. Avalanche whales hold 74.2% ($265 million) of their holdings in USDT, and 5.68% ($20.3 million) in USDC. Polygon whales allocated the least to stablecoins with only 6.09% ($19.1 million) held in USDC.

Time To Flee For Safety?

Whale holdings and their investment trends can often sway investor sentiment because it shows what these large holders are thinking about the crypto market. Their recent move to stablecoin holdings shows that they expect the market prices to go much lower in the near future.

This is not strictly out of line given that indicators show that the crypto market has yet to see its bottom. Previous bear markets have seen the prices of digital assets such as bitcoin and Ethereum falling more than 80% each, putting the market bottom of bitcoin at around $13,000.

Given this, and the fact that the market follows the price of bitcoin, if it is not at the bottom, it is a good time to seek safe haven in these digital assets. It helps investors preserve the value of their funds while waiting for better market conditions to start reinvesting.

Featured image from Schroders, chart from TradingView.com

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Trade Activity Shows Ethereum Whales Are Seeking Refuge In Stablecoins

For a while now, Ethereum whales have been moving their coins around. This has been a direct result of the bear market that has caused investors to lose a significant amount of their portfolios. Even now, the crypto market is still being ravaged by declining prices. The result of this has been investors seeking refuge in tokens that do not see a lot of volatility, and Ethereum whales have not been left out of this flight to safety.

Stablecoins Gain Favor

Over the last 24 hours, the trade activity of the top Ethereum whales has shown a big shift towards stablecoins. These whales, who have usually been known to trade across a number of digital assets regardless of their volatility, are taking less risk during this time.

The USDT stablecoin has been the number 1 token by trade volume for these top Ethereum whales. The average volume transacted by the whales came out to $267,328, even higher than the volume for ETH, which was the second-highest by trading volume. USDC featured in third place on this list, with an average amount of $89,180 over this time. 

In the same vein, the stablecoins were at the top of the most purchased tokens over this time. USDT naturally led the list, while USDC was in second place. Interestedly, ETH did not take 3rd place as expected because Ethereum whales bought more SRM than ETH over this time period. 

ETH price settles above $1,300 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

On the topic of sales, the whales continued the trend of moving toward stablecoins. ETH was the most sold token over the last 24 hours, most of which had gone to converting ETH holdings into the more stable USDT and USDC.

Ethereum Whales Want Stability

Over the course of 2022, Ethereum whales have moved towards more stable options. While ETH continues to top their holdings, the change in their token holdings shows that these whales are getting ready to weather another bear storm.

The start of the year had seen tokens such as Shiba Inu and FTX Token topping the holdings of these large investors. However, the tide has shifted so much in this regard that the largest token holdings of these whales are now in stablecoins.

Presently, USDC is the largest token holder of the top 100 Ethereum whales at $653.3 million (26.09%). It is then followed by USDT with a cumulative holding value of $575.14 million (22.96%). Shiba Inu still features highly on this list but is a long way from being the largest token held by these large investors.

Given that analysts continue to warn investors that the bottom of the crypto bear market is not in, it is no surprise that these investors are looking for safety. If the bottom happens to be lower than already recorded cycle lows, then there is more pain to come.

Featured image from CryptoSlate, chart from TradingView.com

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Lightning Speed: How To Take BTC From Reserve Asset To World Reserve Currency

Is the Lightning Network bitcoin’s killer app? It might be, but it still has a long road ahead. One of the stops on that road is the possible inclusion of stablecoins. Does bitcoin need them? Aren’t there inherent counterparty risks with those? The debate over those questions rages on. And in their latest post, The Bitcoin Layer makes the case for this development to be crucial in The Lightning Networks trajectory. 

According to The Bitcoin Layer, “a global capital market operating on top of bitcoin-denominated financial rails is inching closer with each new onramp.” And the Taro protocol and all of the assets it would bring to The Lightning Network is the mother of all onramps. However, the risks it brings forth are as big as the opportunities it presents.

Let’s explore what The Bitcoin Layer has to say before jumping to conclusions. They might surprise us.

Making Lightning Interoperable With Everything

The first part of the article is about Magma, “a Lightning liquidity marketplace that allows nodes to buy and sell liquidity by leasing other network participant’s channels for a minimum specified period of time.” According to the article, Magma’s existence proves “a structural demand for secondary markets of liquidity”. In those markets, “participants can buy and sell collateral as needed—eventually blossoming into a deep and liquid capital market.” 

Not only that, The Bitcoin Layer also theorizes about:

“Through time, Lightning Banks will emerge. As market participants lack the technical wherewithal to efficiently operate Lightning channels, most Lightning Network channel management will be subsumed by these entities who specialize in it.”

And this is where the Taro protocol comes in. When it was announced, our sister site Bitcoinist posed the following questions:

“So, the main idea is to create and transact stablecoins over the Lightning Network, but the technology allows users to create any asset including NFTs. And the bitcoin network underpins the whole thing. However, is this a positive development for bitcoin? How will this benefit the Lightning Network? Does a hyperbitcoinized world require tokens?”

And The Bitcoin Layer provides convincing enough answers to those questions. But first…

“Taro makes bitcoin and Lightning interoperable with everything. For the Lightning Network, this means more network volume, more network liquidity, and more routing fees for node operators, driving more innovation and capital into the space. Any increase in demand for transactional capacity that will come from these new assets (think stablecoins) will correspond with increased liquidity on the bitcoin network to facilitate these transactions.” 

BTC price chart for 08/09/2022 on Kraken | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
A Bitcoin-Denominated Global Capital Market

“Using sats as the transmittal rails for transactions across every currency opens the door for a bitcoin-denominated global capital market”. No one would contest that. Nor that “the Taro protocol opens the floodgates for this traditional finance liquidity to be subsumed by a faster, counterparty-free settlement network”. The network is counterparty-free, but, what about the assets’ inherent counterparty risk?

Conceptual Future Bitcoin-Lightning Risk Curve | Source: The Bitcoin Layer

According to The Bitcoin Layer, it’s all about risk and the barrier to entry:

“Higher tiers on the risk curve require less maintenance but incur more risk, whereas the lower levels on the risk curve incur less risk but have a higher barrier to entry for the average person who lacks the technical wherewithal for maintenance and security best practices.” 

And they make the case that the introduction of Taro is a crucial step in the process of bitcoin fulfilling its destiny of becoming the world reserve currency.

“For bitcoin to become a world reserve currency, a deeply liquid capital market is an intrinsic requirement—and the Taro protocol is a promising step in making that happen. While bitcoin and LN are trillions of dollars away from becoming a legitimate alternative to other capital markets, they arguably maintain the lowest collective risk profile of any capital market in existence, as they are underwritten by an asset that when custodied incurs zero counterparty risk.”

Zero counterparty risk.

Does The Lightning Network Need Stablecoins, Though?

The answer to that question is still up in the air. The Bitcoin Layer acknowledges the inherent counterparty risk those present. It even puts them almost at the top of the risk curve. However, they consider them crucial and even welcome every other asset in the world to The Lightning Network. According to their theory, that’s how “a bitcoin-denominated capital market” emerges.

Of course, this is all speculation. The Taro protocol has not been approved. Bitcoin’s liquidity is far away from what it needs to be to become the global reserve currency. And, even though stablecoins on The Lightning Network might be closer than we think, the whole scenario takes place in a distant future.

Featured Image by WikimediaImages from Pixabay | Charts by TradingView and The Bitcoin Layer

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Deloitte Survey Clearly Shows Crypto Payments Are The Next Big Thing In Commerce

A new Deloitte survey titled “Merchants getting ready for crypto” contains extremely bullish news. It clearly shows that businesses of all sizes are getting ready for all kinds of crypto payments. And the vast majority believe that they will become ubiquitous in the next few years. Merchants, they are just like us. Deloitte produced the survey in association with PayPal, which is telling and arises questions. 

“Survey respondents are very optimistic about digital currencies in the consumer market, reporting broad agreement that accepting digital currency payments is already a point of differentiation, and are expected to see broad near-term adoption,” Deloitte concludes. Besides that, merchants see “benefits such as speed of payments and cost efficiencies.” Which shows they’re not in just for the flashy “differentiation,” and already see all of the benefits it could bring to them. 

As for the methodology, let’s quote the document:

“The survey focuses on US consumer businesses, with annual revenues ranging from below $10 million to $500 million and above, asking their views on digital currency payments and the investments they’ve made in payment infrastructure, as well as their plans for the years ahead.”

So, these are medium to big-sized players we’re dealing with here. Deloitte doesn’t differentiate between bitcoin and crypto, and doesn’t specify exactly which cryptocurrencies the merchants are talking about. The survey company makes a point of separating stablecoins from the rest of the cryptocurrencies, though.

Results: Deloitte And Merchants

  • “Around two-thirds (64%) of our surveyed merchants indicated that their customers have significant interest in using digital currencies for payments.” These are staggering numbers, considering the majority of the population doesn’t even know what a stablecoin is. If merchants are perceiving this tendency, chances are it does exist. 
  • “83% expect consumer interest in digital currencies for payments to increase or significantly increase over the next 12 months.” We agree wholeheartedly, Deloitte.
  • “More than 85% of the organizations are giving high or very high priority to enabling cryptocurrency payments, while roughly 83% are doing the same for stablecoins.” We’re willing to bet not many people in crypto suspects that the numbers are this high. If they did, they’d be even more bullish.  
  • ”Around 85% of surveyed merchants expect that digital currency payments will be ubiquitous among suppliers in their industry in five years.” We agree wholeheartedly, Deloitte. In five years we’ll live in a new universe, and crypto will be one of the catalysts.
  • “Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed reported plans to accept either cryptocurrency or stablecoin payments within the next 24 months.” The positive attitude is there and plans are underway.

How could you not be bullish? 

AVAX price chart on Bittrex | Source: AVAX/USD on TradingView.com
Results: This Is What Adoption Looks Like

  • “An overwhelming majority of those who currently accept cryptocurrency as a payment instrument (93%) have already seen a positive impact on their business’s customer metrics, such as customer base growth and brand perception.” This is as close to unanimously as we’re going to get, Delloite. The hype is real.
  • “They expect to derive value from their digital currency adoption in three distinct ways: improved customer experience (48% of respondents), increased customer base (46%), and brand is perceived as cutting edge (40%).“ No comments on this one.
  • “It is worth noting that 86% see a significant benefit to their finance and cash management for accepting digital currency payments.” The key word is crucial here 
  • “In fact, 26% have already integrated digital currencies in their finance functionality such as revenue cycle and treasury, and 61% plan to do it over the next 24 months.” If the government permits it. 
  • “Over half (54%) of large retailers (with revenues of $500 million and up) have invested more than $1 million on enabling digital currency payments, while only 6% of small retailers (with revenues of under $10 million) did so.” As it should be, Delloite. As it should be.
  • “Slightly more than a quarter (26%) of the organizations surveyed for this report have already begun integrating digital currency into their finance department functionality, but more than a third of respondents (39%) plan to begin integration within a year.” Considering holding cryptocurrencies is a high-risk maneuver, these are phenomenal numbers.

And that’s what Deloitte and the companies that they interviewed had for us. Here’s hoping they provide us with new mind-blowing material sooner than later.

Featured Image: Screenshot from the study | Charts by TradingView