USDC Trading Dominates Record Day for DeFi Exchanges Uniswap, Curve

Decentralized exchanges (DEX) Uniswap and Curve recorded lifetime high trading volumes over the weekend as traders rushed to exchange token holdings, specifically USD coin (USDC).

Uniswap processed nearly $12 billion in trading volume over a 24-hour period from Saturday to Sunday.

DEXs rely on smart contracts instead of middlemen to provide financial services such as trading, lending or borrowing to users. Users deposit their tokens to pools to provide liquidity to the platform for rewards, typically a cut of fees paid by traders who use these services.

Dune Analytics data shows USDC pools for wrapped ether (wETH), tether USDT$1.0002 and DAI$0.9997 processed $15 billion in volume over a seven-day period, with a majority of this taking place from Friday to Sunday.

This generated over $8 million in fees for the Uniswap protocol, adding to Uniswap Labs’ revenue and a smaller percentage paid out to liquidity providers.

Elsewhere, stablecoin swapping tool Curve recorded nearly $8 billion in trading volume. One of its popular pools was out of balance as traders rushed to exchange USDC for other tokens.

Circle Internet Financial's USDC stablecoin massively depegged from its intended $1 price on Friday night after Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), where Circle parked over $3.3 billion in treasury assets, was shut by regulators.

That sparked a selling frenzy over the weekend, with bitcoin dipping from a major support level at $20,000 to as low as $19,200.

However, bitcoin BTC$88,993.04 and ether ETH$3,031.57 surged 10% in the past 24 hours to retrace all weekend losses on Monday. The move came as USD coin (USDC) issuer Circle said Sunday it would cover all shortfall in reserves, while U.S. regulators said SVB depositors will have access to all funds on Monday morning after the U.S. open.