Key takeaways:
- Crypto exchange Coinbase has listed Binance USD (BUSD), a stablecoin project by Paxos and Binance
- With the addition of BUSD, Coinbase now supports eight different stablecoins, including Tether, USD Coin, and TerraUSD
- The stablecoin sector currently accounts for close to 10% of the total crypto market cap and continues to grow at an accelerated rate
Coinbase expands its stablecoin offering with BUSD
On Wednesday, the publicly traded cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase listed Binance USD (BUSD), a stablecoin project of its exchange competitor Binance. BUSD joins Coinbase’s rich offering of stablecoins that already includes Tether, USD Coin, TerraUSD, Dai, Paxos Standard, Rai Reflex Index, and mStable USD. Coinbase clarified in a Twitter post that it is adding support for ETH-based BUSD and that sending the asset on other platforms might result in a loss of funds.
The BUSD listing comes at a time when the popularity of stablecoins is at its all-time high, with the total market capitalization of all stablecoins in circulation accounting for roughly 10% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. According to data from The Block, the stablecoin market has surpassed the $180 billion milestone earlier this month, with Tether (USDT) accounting for 46% of the entire sector.
The addition of BUSD to Coinbase’s catalog of supported digital assets did raise some eyebrows, as BUSD is a joint project of Paxos and Binance, one of Coinbase’s biggest competitors. It is worth noting that Binance was in a similar position as Coinbase in 2018, when it listed USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin developed by the Centre Consortium led by Circle and Coinbase.
In related news, TRON Founder Justin Sun announced last week the launch of a new stable currency, aptly called Decentralized Stablecoin (USDD). At the time, Sun explained USDD’s algorithmic characteristics and highlighted the importance of decentralized, non-fiat backed stablecoins for the industry. In this sense, USDD is set to behave similarly and occupy a similar position in the market as Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST), one of the fastest-growing digital assets in the space.
In addition to listing BUSD, Coinbase also listed privacy-oriented Oasis Network’s ROSE tokens. Shortly after it started trading on the exchange, ROSE jumped over 20% and hit its multi-week high.
