Smart Money Staying Put as USDC Remains Off Peg
Data from Nansen shows the total amount held by smart money wallets, and active addresses, are at multi-month lows.
Mar 13, 2023 at 8:29 a.m. UTC:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/PWNPEK2JN5ECPJH4VM6XIUW5H4.jpg)
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Crypto’s smart money – which Nansen defines as everything from institutions to large traders – is dropping Circle’s USDC, on-chain data shows.
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According to data from Nansen, the total balance of USDC in smart money wallets is approximately $485 million across 1,396 wallets. This is down from $700 million in 1,455 wallets a month ago and $1.02 billion in 1,478 wallets a year ago.
Meanwhile, the percentage of smart money in all stablecoins has dropped to 21%. At the start of the year it was near 30%, and hit an all-time high of 38% at the end of August 2022.
This skepticism of USDC by crypto’s biggest holders is likely impairing the ability for USDC to regain its dollar peg.
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Nansen reports the supply of USDC on exchanges is up 8% compared to a week ago.
CoinGecko data says USDC is currently trading at 98 cents. Across all exchanges, Kraken is the closest to regaining its peg, with the USDC-USD price coming in at 99.22 cents.
On Binance, USDC-USDT perpetual futures contracts, are trading at 98.72 cents, slightly ahead of the spot price of 98 cents, implying that some traders are optimistic the peg will be restored.
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