Orbital’s report shows that users in Algeria, Bolivia, and Venezuela are paying staggering premiums of 90%, 77%, and 63%, respectively, to access dollar-pegged tokens. This is a sign that stablecoins are becoming digital versions of the US dollar in these regions. Mid-tier premier ranges between 8% and 18% in countries like Türkiye, Ethiopia, and Argentina.
On the other hand, markets such as India, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa show lower premiums, as improved financial infrastructure makes it easier to buy and sell stablecoins at near-market rates. Some countries, including Colombia and Peru, even trade below parity, a sign of stronger liquidity and growing market maturity.
Notably, a new generation of blockchains is competing for a share of stablecoin traffic. Binance Smart Chain still leads in retail transfers but saw growth slow by half in Q3.
Aptos has now stabilized after its massive breakout earlier in the year, while Plasma, the newest entrant, set a record of $7 billion in deposits within days of launching its native token, XPL.
Tron also continued its steady climb due to its heavy USDT usage, and Ethereum saw its total stablecoin supply expand by $35 billion.
Stablecoin Wallet-to-wallet Transfers
According to data from CoinGecko, the stablecoin market cap today is around $311 billion.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
