Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Figure 1. USDC Primary Market Net Issuance and Secondary Market Price

The x-axis of the chart spans from Thursday, March 9 to Tuesday, March 14. The left y-axis denotes “net issuance” of USDC in millions, ranging from -750M to 500M. The right y-axis shows USDC Price, ranging from $0.90 to $1.06. The chart features black vertical bars representing USDC net issuance over time.

Four key events are marked with red vertical dashed lines:

1. SVB receivership on Friday 03/10
2. Circle tweet re. SVB on Friday 03/10
3. Circle stands behind USDC on Saturday 03/11
4. Official guarantee for SVB on Sunday 03/12

These bars show both positive and negative issuance leading up to SVB going into receivership, then large net negative issuance after SVB goes into receivership, increasing over the course of the day until the Circle tweet re. SVB. Following the Circle tweet, redemptions slow until late Sunday night, one large increase in net issuance is followed by significant net redemptions over the course of Monday. A blue line represents the USDC price, which starts near $1.00, drops sharply to about $0.90 after the Circle tweet re. SVB, and then gradually recovers back to near $1.00, with small increases coinciding with the subsequent events marked on the chart.

Taken together, the chart shows that price events coincide with net issuance and respond predictably to the events in red. Significant redemptions coincide with small deviations from par, but the price drops significantly when redemptions largely cease (which we call the primary market shutdown). The price recovery over the weekend is uneven but responds most positively to the official guarantee for SVB. However, it is not until redemptions resume in earnest that the price returns to $1.00.

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Figure 2. USDC trading volume on centralized and decentralized exchanges

The x-axis of the chart spans from Thursday, March 9 to Tuesday, March 14. The left y-axis represents CEX and DEX Volume in millions of dollars, ranging from $0M to $2000M. The right y-axis shows USDC Price, ranging from $0.90 to $1.00.

The chart features stacked bar columns representing CEX (light grey) and DEX (dark grey) volumes over time. A blue line represents the USDC price.

Four key events are marked with red vertical dashed lines:

1. SVB receivership on Friday 03/10
2. Circle tweet re. SVB on Friday 03/10
3. Circle stands behind USDC on Saturday 03/11
4. Official guarantee for SVB on Sunday 03/12

The USDC price shows a sharp decline following the SVB receivership announcement, reaching its lowest point around 0.90 early on March 11. It then begins a gradual recovery, with small increases coinciding with the subsequent events marked on the chart. The volume bars show a dramatic increase in both CEX and DEX activity, with volumes reaching nearly 2000M per hour at the peak. The trading activity begins to increase following the SVB receivership announcement, and peaks on March 11 just before the time of the USDC price low point. The graph also shows that volume on DEXs significantly outpaces CEXs during the event, even though they roughly matched in the hours before the event.

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Figure 3. PSM activity and Dai price

The chart spans from Thursday, March 9 to Tuesday, March 14 on the x-axis. It contains two separate graphs:

1. The top graph shows USDC Exchange Volume in millions (left y-axis, blue bars) ranging from 0M to 2000M, and Dai Price (right y-axis, orange line) ranging from $0.88 to $1.00.
2. The bottom graph shows PSM Mint in millions, ranging from 0M to just over 300M.

The Dai Price (orange line) starts near 1.00, then drops sharply to just under 0.90 on March 11, before gradually recovering to near 1.00 by March 14.

Exchange Volume (blue bars) is the sum of the DEX and CEX volumes from the previous graph, increasing as the price of Dai drops on March 11, peaking just before Dai hits its price floor.

The PSM Mint graph (grey line) shows three notable spikes in activity: a large one on March 10, a larger and sharper spike on March 11, and a smaller spike on March 12. On both March 10 and March 11, the volume of PSM mints in the PSM drop off to 0 after the spike and stays there for several hours. This chart shows how DAI price, trading volumes, and minting activity were affected during this period, with sharp changes in all three metrics coinciding with the event and its aftermath.

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Figure 4. PSM activity, dollar price for USDC and Dai

The chart spans from Thursday, March 09 to Tuesday, March 14 on the x-axis. It combines two types of data:

1. PSM Mint and Burn volumes (left y-axis): The axis ranges from -100M to 300M. Green bars represent DAI Mint (USDC Inflow), while red bars represent DAI Burn (USDC Outflow).
2. USDC and DAI Prices (right y-axis): Axis ranges from $0.88 to $1.00. USDC price is shown in blue, DAI price in orange.

The price lines for both USDC and Dai reflect the same pattern as the previous graph: they start near $1.00, then drop sharply on March 11, with both dropping to around or just under $.90. Both gradually recover to near $1.00 by March 14, with uneven price recovery over the weekend. The two lines track similar prices, although a gap opens up, with Dai’s price rising about 2 cents above USDC’s price for several hours when PSM mint activity ceases on Saturday, March 11.

The PSM Mint and Burn activity reflects what the previous graph shows on PSM Mint activity. There are two large spikes in minting activity on Friday and Saturday, and one smaller spike on Sunday into Monday. Additionally, the Dai Burn activity shows similar, though much smaller, spikes coinciding with the mint activity, and small levels of activity in the intervening time between the spikes in Dai minting activity.

This chart illustrates the relationship between activity on the PSM and the prices of USDC and Dai during the SVB crisis. It shows how USDC and DAI prices tracked closely as a result of the activity on the PSM, and how a price gap opened up after the PSM hit its pre-programmed limit on Saturday, March 11.

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Figure 5. Dai primary market activity (PSM vs non-PSM)

The chart spans from Thursday, March 9 to Tuesday, March 14 on the x-axis. The y-axis represents Value (in unit stablecoins), ranging from -500M to 1000M.

The chart uses stacked bar columns to show the Dai primary market using different collateral types:

• GUSD PSM (green with diagonal stripes)
• Other, non-PSM (orange with crosshatch)
• USDC PSM (purple)
• USDP PSM (pink with dots)

Two key events are marked with red vertical dashed lines:

1. SVB receivership on Friday 03/10
2. Official guarantee for SVB on Sunday 03/12

The activity levels vary significantly across the dates:

Friday, March 10 shows large minting and burning, with USDC and USDP being the most active. Minting from USDC collateral reaches nearly 1000M, while cumulatively, burning associated with collateral outflows of USDP (nearly 400M), GUSD, and “other” total around 500M.

Saturday, March 11 has the largest mints associated with USDC, exceeding 1000M. There is also moderate activity in other collateral types, notably just under 100M of burns associated with “other” collateral and just over 100M of burns associated with GUSD.

Sunday, March 12 shows less activity, with just over 250M of minting associated with USDC, just over 50M of burns associated with GUSD, and 135M worth of burning activity associated with “other” collateral.

This chart illustrates the dramatic shifts in Dai primary market activity around the time of the SVB crisis. It shows how, during the event, the PSM was used to deposit a significant amount of USDC; at the same time, significant amounts of GUSD, USDP, and other collateral were withdrawn from the PSM in return for Dai.

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Figure 6. Stablecoin Prices (USDC, DAI, USDP, GUSD, TUSD, USDT, and BUSD)

The chart is divided into four separate graphs, each showing price movements for different stablecoins from Thursday, March 9 to Tuesday, March 14.

1. Top-left graph (USDC & DAI):
   Shows USDC (blue) and DAI (orange) prices. As shown in the previous graph, both start near $1.00, then drop sharply to around $0.90 on March 11-12, before recovering to near $1.00 by March 14.
2. Top-right graph (USDP & GUSD PSM Exposure):
   Shows USDP (brown) and GUSD (pink) prices. USDP depegs to a low of just over $.90, and GUSD de-pegs to a low of around $.96, with both experiencing volatility, and generally staying below the dollar peg for the whole event, though not as significantly as USDC and Dai.
3. Bottom-left graph (TUSD Signature Exposure):
   Shows TUSD price (green), which experiences volatility, dropping briefly to about $0.97 on March 11, recovering to close to the dollar, then experiencing some volatility around the dollar mark.
4. Bottom-right graph (USDT & BUSD Unlinked):
   Displays USDT (teal) and BUSD (grey) prices. Unlike the other graphs, both stablecoin prices increase above the dollar, with USDT reaching a high of just over $1.01 and BUS reaching a high of just under $1.01 on March 12. Both stablecoins stay above the dollar mark for most of the duration of the SVB event.

Overall, this chart illustrates how different stablecoins experienced price volatility during the event. Stablecoins linked to the event, either through exposure to other bank failures or through contagion via the PSM, experienced depegs, while entirely unlinked stablecoins experienced price appreciation above the dollar. This illustrates both the contagion effect of the PSM and flight-to-safety dynamics.

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