According to a new report from Chainalysis, the US is driving the largest crypto activity in the world, with a transaction volume of more than $1 trillion between July 2022 and June 2023. Together with Canada, the region accounts for almost a quarter of the global transaction volume.
Large institutional investors are the main driver of activity, with 76.9% of the region’s transaction volume consisting of transfers of $1 million or more, Chainalysis said in a report. blog post on Monday.
Activity in the region predictably declined after the crisis eruption of the FTX stock exchange and the beginning of the lawsuit from former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. However, that seemed to be a smaller shock to the sector than the banking crisis in March, which was the case at Silicon Valley Bank to block by regulators, a move that was followed by actions against other crypto-friendly banks such as Silver Gate And Signature.
“Activity within the chain will start to pick up again from June. As we see in the chart below, the transaction size data indicates that the withdrawal of institutional investors was the main driver of the overall decline in activity, as retail users and sub-institutional professionals estimated trader activity remained consistent,” Chain analysis said.
Stablecoin usage
The same banking shock could reduce the use of stablecoins in North America. According to Chainalysis, stablecoin usage fell from 70.3% to 48.8% of on-chain transaction volume in the region last year, with the sector’s market capitalization hitting its lowest point in more than two years this summer.
Stablecoin’s activity is also shifting away from US-licensed services, Chainlaysis said, reversing the trend from late last year. Now more than half of all traded stablecoins flow to non-US licensed exchanges, the report said.
“US regulators have a strong interest in exercising some regulatory authority over stablecoins, given the central role of USD-denominated reserves for these assets.” Chain analysis said. “Regulating Stablecoin also gives regulators the opportunity to ensure that the US is home to cryptocurrency companies that will play a major role in expanding how the US dollar is used globally as the digital economy continues to grow. However, data shows that more and more stablecoin activity is taking place through entities that are not licensed in the United States.”
According to Chainalysis, North America still dominates global DeFi volume, but the share of decentralized protocols in total volume has declined over the past year. As of June, on-chain activity in the US and Canada was “relatively evenly split between DeFi and centralized exchanges,” according to Chainalsysis.