Curve Finance trading volume reaches $7B historic high after USDC depeg

Stablecoin swapping pool Curve Finance is experiencing the highest daily trading volume in its history, exceeding $7 billion in the past 24 hours after the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapse triggered a wave of uncertainty across markets and depegged the USD Coin (USDC) from the U.S. dollar.

Looks like we have the biggest daily trading volume in history

— Curve Finance (@CurveFinance) March 11, 2023

Curve supports liquidity pools for major stablecoins, such as USDC, Tether (USDT), Frax (FRAX), Dai (DAI) and TrueUSD (TUSD). Fear, doubt, and uncertainty have spread across crypto markets during the last few hours, resulting in unbalanced pools in the DeFi platform due to a sell-off of USDC, leading the major stablecoin price to fall below its $1 peg.

USDC is the second-biggest stablecoin, with a market cap of over $42 billion as of January 31, serving as collateral for many stablecoin ecosystems. Its depeg had an immediate effect on other stablecoins like DAI issued by MakerDAO, down 5% at the time of publication.

To prevent panic selling, MakerDAO filed an “urgent executive proposal to mitigate risks to the protocol” on March 11 seeking restrictions on minting DAI using USDC. MakerDAO is one of the largest holders of the stablecoin, with over 3.1 billion USDC ($2.85 billion) in reserves collateralizing DAI. Crypto whales have reported severe losses and appear to be fleeing their assets in an attempt to preserve capital, Cointelegraph reported.

Circle, the company behind the USDC, disclosed on March 11 that $3.3 billion of its $40 billion reserves were stuck in the Silicon Valley Bank, which was shut down the day before by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. The watchdog also appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as the receiver to protect insured deposits.

Silicon Valley Bank is one of six banking partners Circle uses for managing the ~25% portion of USDC reserves held in cash. While we await clarity on how the FDIC receivership of SVB will impact its depositors, Circle & USDC continue to operate normally

— Circle (@circle) March 10, 2023

In comments to Cointelegraph, Dave Weisberger, co-founder and CEO of algorithmic-trading platform CoinRoutes, said that the “fodder for a broader contagion event is there” and that “the spark could be materializing,” putting at risk many startups and tech companies in the country — a critical sector for the “sustained growth of the American economy.”