Financial news

The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) has launched a new tool providing real-time data and educational resources on digital money with an initial focus on stablecoins.

The stablecoin market has surged from less than $3billion in 2019 to more than $130billion in 2024. This rapid expansion has been accompanied by several market events that have caused major depegs in various stablecoins, prompting a heightened effort towards regulation and supervision.

Catering to policymakers, financial professionals, as well as the general public, the ‘Cambridge Digital Money Dashboard’ offers insights into stablecoin adoption, risks, regulatory frameworks and more.

In its first release, the Cambridge Digital Money Dashboard – an open-access digital tool – covers the most prominent stablecoins that together constitute approximately 95 per cent of the overall stablecoin market cap. The data is updated regularly (hourly or daily via API) and is scalable, with future updates to include expanded data on primary use cases of stablecoins and geography-related datasets.

It enables users to discover some of the foundational adoption metrics such as aggregate stablecoin supply and value of transfers over time. The addition of velocity metrics also helps users identify changes in stablecoin usage patterns during important market events, further highlighting stablecoin holders’ preferences during times of turmoil.

Future releases will also include a context and comparisons section to provide the general public and financial professionals with easy-to-understand analogies to traditional finance, as well as a deep dive into the use cases of stablecoins.

Shedding light

Bryan Zhang, co-founder and executive director of the CCAF, said: “With the incredible growth and increasing adoption of stablecoins as well as the rapid development in CBDCs, tokenised bank deposits and cryptoassets, the landscape of digital money is changing before our eyes.

“The Cambridge Digital Money Dashboard aims to shed a light on that evolving, complex and fluid landscape, and underscores our continued efforts to inform evidence-based decision-making by leveraging the power of empirical data and collaborative research.”

The empirical data for the dashboard is sourced from various providers – including Lukka, Coinmetrics and Glassnode – as well as open sources, such as stablecoin issuer websites and legislative documents in select jurisdictions.

The Cambridge Digital Money Dashboard is a research output of the Cambridge Digital Assets Programme, a multi-year research initiative hosted by the CCAF in collaboration with 18 prominent public and private institutions.  CCAF is part of the Cambridge Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge.

CDAP’s founding institutional collaborators include Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub, British International Investment (BII), Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC), EY, Fidelity Investments, UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), Goldman Sachs, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Invesco, Mastercard, MSCI, Visa and World Bank. Four new members have recently joined the effort: NatWest, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), Euroclear and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC).

Amarjit Singh, EY EMEIA Assurance blockchain leader, comments: “At the time when the Bank of England and the FCA are consulting on stablecoins, it is great to have a tool that helps all stakeholders in the ecosystem understand, learn and also reflect on the data that is available on digital money.”