Despite the market downturn, which is often a boom time for stablecoins, Gemini Dollars number just over $9.5 million. The token’s performance is dismal by comparison to other stablecoins such as TUSD or USDC, which have dozens of millions of units floating around.
As a result, a Gemini Dollar isn’t quite worth a dollar at press time – it’s going for about 99 cents.
Gemini Dollar was one of three stablecoins launched not quite a year ago. USD Coin, a joint initiative between Circle and Coinbase, currently has over $300 million units floating about. Paxos Standard has over $250 million.
True USD (TUSD), another stablecoin launched at a different time, has about $189 million.
Needless to say, we have to wonder whether or not the Gemini exchange has long to live. It would seem the operation is on life support if its issuance is a tiny fraction of competitors launched at the same time. Combined, they still have far less capital than Tether, the godfather of Stablecoins.
A Field of Stablecoins
Tether currently resides on three blockchains. It was originally launched as a Bitcoin token, later also as a an Ethereum token, and finally it’s recently come to Tron.
Tether (USDT) has a number of scandals clouding it at this point, which might explain the rise in popularity of tokens like USDC.
When markets tank, traders often like to staunch their losses by getting out into a stablecoin. Then once the price seems to bottom out, they can buy back in bigger. Then when the asset price returns, they make more on their investment.
That’s one purpose that stablecoins can serve.
Gemini Dollar seems to be serving that purpose for Gemini users, but the token doesn’t seem to be popular in any of its dozens of other markets.
For better or worse, the project must live on because people own money. Gemini is not making a killing, at this point, but it might not be losing money, either.
Coinbase, a Gemini competitor, is currently finding ways to grow its business. One idea they’re considering is the notion of an IEO platform – essentially an exchange-backed ICO, like Binance does and some other exchanges do.
As we said above, Coinbase’s stablecoin, USDC, is currently much more popular than Gemini Dollars.
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