In November, the stablecoin market showed interesting dynamics: while classic assets backed by the dollar gradually increased in volume, the synthetic USDe from Ethena significantly declined. Over the month, its capitalization decreased by $2.2 billion — from $9.3 billion to $7.1 billion. This is a decline of 24%.
Unlike USDT or USDC, which have real fiat backing, USDe maintains its peg to the dollar through speculative strategies with crypto and derivatives. Therefore, sharp fluctuations in demand immediately impact the volume. Judging by the outflow, many holders either took profits, closed positions in DeFi, or simply withdrew liquidity.
Against this backdrop, fiat stablecoins only strengthened their positions. According to CoinGecko, at the end of the month, the total market capitalization of the sector amounted to $311 billion, of which $303 billion pertains to dollar assets. This highlights that market participants' interest is still concentrated around more stable instruments.
The drop of USDe intensified after the October loss of its peg
The November volume reduction was not the first alarming signal. Back in October, the synthetic stablecoin USDe sharply lost its peg on Binance, dropping to 65 cents. This sparked a wave of discussions, but the project team explained the incident as a local problem with the exchange's oracle, rather than a systemic error of the protocol itself.
Guy Yang, the founder of Ethena, insisted that the collateral mechanism remained stable, and at the moment of the drop, the system functioned normally: the issuance and redemption of tokens continued without failures. At that time, about 2 billion USDe was withdrawn from circulation, mainly through DeFi platforms.
At its peak, on October 9, the token's market capitalization approached $15 billion — this was the third result among all stablecoins. Today, USDe has dropped to fourth place with a valuation of $6.9 billion.
Fiat stablecoins gained $3.2 billion in November
While USDe was losing billions, traditional stablecoins were gaining. The largest of them, USDT from Tether, strengthened its position by $1.3 billion and is now valued at $184.6 billion. USDC from Circle also gained, but more modestly: $600 million over the month, totaling $76.5 billion.
The most noticeable growth was shown by PYUSD, the stablecoin from PayPal. Its volume increased from $2.8 to $3.8 billion in November, meaning an immediate increase of one billion dollars. This is a +35% increase in just one month.
Looking more broadly, PYUSD turned out to be one of the fastest-growing stablecoins this fall. In September, its market capitalization was only $1.2 billion, and by the end of November, it was already $3.8 billion. Over three months, the increase amounted to $2.6 billion — a plus of 216%, according to DeFiLlama.
Another newcomer that is confidently gaining traction: RLUSD from Ripple. Having first surpassed the billion-dollar mark, it continued to grow and by the end of November reached $1.26 billion. The starting volume was $960 million. The increase for the month was about $300 million, according to CoinGecko.
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