Binance To Pull Support From Rivaling USDC, USDP, TUSD Stablecoins
Binance effectively banished USD Coin (USDC), the second-biggest stablecoin, from trading at its cryptocurrency exchange in favor of its own competing product.
The world’s biggest digital-asset exchange announced Monday that on Sept. 29, customers’ holdings of USDC will be converted to Binance USD (BUSD). The same will happen with two smaller stablecoins: Pax Dollar (USDP) and TrueUSD (TUSD).
Customers transferring USDC, USDP or TUSD will have them automatically converted to BUSD, though they will be able to withdraw those other stablecoins when they remove money from Binance.
The action effectively removes USDC, which has a market cap of nearly $52 billion, as a tradable asset on one of the most prominent perches in crypto – removing momentum in the race to overtake Tether (USDT) as the largest stablecoin. It’s a headache for Circle Internet Financial, USDC’s issuer, as the company mulls an IPO.
The surprise move comes as the world’s largest exchange is going after another rival, Coinbase, which is well known for its high fees, by undercutting it on price.
With a market cap of $19.5 billion, BUSD is the third largest stablecoin. TUSD and USDP rank fifth and sixth with market caps of $1 billion and $945 million, respectively.
Stablecoins are a foundational part of the crypto market, serving as a digital stand-in for the U.S. dollar in many cases. Stablecoins are types of digital currencies aimed to hold the value of a traditional asset like a fiat currency, with the dollar being the most prevalent.
The stablecoin market is dominated by USDT’s 44% market share.
