- Crypto market cap grew by 48.9% to $1.2T in Q1 2023.
- Top stablecoins lost $6.2B in market cap, while Tether gained dominance.
- NFT trading volume saw a resurgence to $4.5B, with Blur dethroning OpenSea.
According to the latest industry report from the market tracking platform CoinGecko, the crypto market started the year strong following a turbulent end to 2022, growing by 48.9% to reach $1.2 trillion in 2023 first quarter.
The report showed that Bitcoin (BTC) outperformed traditional asset classes with a quarter-over-quarter increase of 72.4%, making it the best-performing investment in the market. The NASDAQ index followed far behind with a gain of 15.7%, and gold came in third with only an 8.4% gain.
Furthermore, crypto spot trading volume increased by 18.1%, reaching $2.8 trillion, with decentralized exchanges (DEXs) growing faster than centralized exchanges (CEXs). More so, average daily trading volume increased by 30% compared to 2022’s first quarter, peaking in early March due to the banking crisis before tapering off later in the month.
The report also captured the events that affected popular stablecoins early this year. It said the top stablecoins shed $6.2 billion in market cap, with USD Coin (USDC) and Binance USD (BUSD) experiencing the most significant declines. Meanwhile, Tether (USDT) gained 20.5% in market cap, while TrueUSD (TUSD) entered the top five ranking list after it grew by 169.3%.
Similarly, the non-fungible token (NFT) trading volume surged to $4.5 billion, with Blur dethroning OpenSea as the top marketplace, holding a 71.8% market share. Solana’s ecosystem declined, with Magic Eden’s trading volume dropping by 67.9% and notable collections migrating to other chains.
On the other hand, the DeFi market saw a positive growth of over 65%, primarily driven by liquid staking governance tokens. Liquid staking tokens overtook lending protocols as the third-largest category, with a 210.9% increase in market cap.
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