Bitcoin Outperformed NFTs, US Stocks in Q3 But Not USD: CoinGecko Report

The crypto industry showed a mild recovery in Q3 after taking a significant plunge amid volatile conditions over the first half of 2022. 

According to the latest quarterly report published by cryptocurrency aggregator CoinGecko, the overall crypto market cap increased by 6.5%, about $100 billion, in Q3 compared to Q2.

Bitcoin Outperformed Other Assets 

Despite having a choppy Q3, BTC outperformed every asset class except the U.S. dollar Index, which measures the exchange rate of a basket of foreign currencies compared to the greenback. 

While bitcoin’s price dropped in tandem with U.S. equities, the digital asset quickly recovered compared to the stock market and ended the third quarter with only a -1% change in price.

Stablecoins Performed Poorly

The CoinGecko report also revealed that the stablecoin market recorded poor performance over the third quarter, with the market cap of the top 15 stablecoins decreasing by 3%, approximately $4.7 billion quarter-over-quarter (QoQ).  

The report noted that one factor behind the decline in stablecoin’s market cap is the sanction imposed on cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash by the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in August. The ban made it a criminal offense for U.S.-based stablecoin issuers and users to interact with the platform.

USD coin (USDC) suffered the most decline, dropping by 16% after the Tornado sanctions. USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin, saw a slight increase in its market cap as it absorbed some of the selloffs of USDC. 

BUSD, on the other hand, gained the most from the USDC selloff, with its market cap growing by 18%, approximately $9 billion after the ban. The report also pointed out that this positive development for BUSD had coincided with Binance’s unveiling of the auto-conversion of other stablecoins to BUSD.

NFT Market Plummets 77% QoQ

Finally, the report highlighted that the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) market recorded the most significant decline over the last quarter. A massive drop in trading volume across the top five NFT marketplaces, including OpenSea, LooksRare, and more, impacted the entire market. 

Consequently, the sector recorded a new 2022 all-time low (ATL), dropping by a whopping 77.4% from Q2 to Q3. Despite the decline in value, the number of wallets holding NFTs increased by 1 million in Q3.