Eight days ago, Paxos announced that the company would no longer mint the BUSD stablecoin. Since then, the coin’s market capitalization has been shrinking as redemptions have become more prominent. Meanwhile, a Nansen data researcher found that Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trade volume, has increased its USD coin holdings by $1.5 billion in the past seven days.
Nansen Researcher Discovers Binance Stacking Circle Stablecoin
According to Nansen data journalist Martin Lee, the amount of usd coin (USDC) held on Binance has been steadily increasing this week. “Interesting to see the amount of USDC on Binance increase so much since the BUSD news,” Lee tweeted on Tuesday. Lee further detailed that Binance saw a $1.5 billion rise in USDC in the past seven days.
He also noted that he would have expected the strap supply (USDT) to rise on Binance more than USDC, “since USDC cannot be traded” on Binance. On September 5, 2022, Binance removed USDC (USDC) trading pairs and automatically converted client balances to BUSD. Two weeks later, Wazirx followed Binance’s move, delisting USD coin (USDC) and a couple of other stablecoins to automatically convert balances to BUSD.
On Feb. 19, Bitcoin.com News reported that close to 3 billion BUSD had been removed from the market, and today, that number is up 3.55 billion since Paxos revealed that it would no longer mint BUSD. The Paxos-managed stablecoin remains the third-largest stablecoin by market cap until it falls below DAI’s market valuation of $5 billion. BUSD, once a top ten prominent crypto asset by market capitalization, is very close to being knocked out of the top ten.
The Nansen researcher also noted that there is $1.8 billion USDC in the Binance main wallet today, and it is the highest in 90 days. At the time of writing this article, at 2:00 pm (ET) on February 21, 2023, there is $1.821 billion USDC saved in the Binance wallet. It’s worth noting that Nansen’s portfolio viewer only looks at ERC20-based balances, and Binance has just over 100 million Tether (USDT) in the same wallet. The Binance wallet also holds 79.24 million trueusd (TUSD) and 5.34 million DAI.
What do you think about Binance hoarding USD coins after regulators crack down on BUSD? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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