The top 15 stablecoins lost nearly a fifth of their market cap or US$34 billion ($47.5 billion) in absolute terms in the past quarter, according to CoinGecko’s Q2 2022 Cryptocurrency Report.
Image Credit: CoinGecko
The decrease in stablecoin market share, aside from TerraClassicUSD (USTC), suggests that some capital has exited the crypto ecosystem, in contrast to Q1 where investors de-risked into stables amidst market uncertainty.
While Tether may have retained its lead in terms of share, USD Coin (USDC) led in terms of growth at 7% in Q2FY2022. USTC surprisingly still managed to hold onto the 7th place despite never restoring its peg, the report noted.
Meanwhile, OpenSea’s dominance slips in a shrinking non-fungible token (NFT) market from 59% in April to 42% in June.
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Although OpenSea continues to retain its teetering hold as the top NFT marketplace, its competitors Magic Eden and X2Y2 are gaining ground. OpenSea’s integration of Solana also seemed to have “backfired”, opening up the floodgates for Solana NFTs, a move that ended up benefiting Magic Eden more.
Cardano has been found to be the most eco-friendly cryptocurrency, according to the Eco Coin Index from Traders of Crypto.
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Image Credit: Traders of Crypto
While crypto giants Bitcoin and Ethereum use enough electricity to power a small country through their proof-of-work protocol, Cardano uses a proof-of-stake mechanism, making mining less competitive and more energy efficient.
Cardano functions mainly as a digital currency through its token ADA and currently has a market cap of US$15 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Algorand has the second lowest energy consumption, only using 70,237 kilowatt-hours per year, while Avalanche takes third place at 113,2249 kilowatt-hours per year.
