Binance USD vs USD Coin
The crowd can't split them: across 2 money-backed markets, Binance USD and USD Coin each finished ahead 1 times.
Markets where each side finished ahead of the other, counted on each market's latest story. Percentages are consensus within that market, among all of its sides.
- Binance USD 16%
- USD Coin 20%
BUSD vs USDC: One Win Each, and Tether Keeps Stealing the Crowd's Trust
Two dollar-pegged coins, two Morfi markets, one win apiece, and a crowd that keeps handing the crown to somebody else.
On March 11, 2023, a stablecoin that exists to be boring did something exciting. USD Coin slipped off its dollar peg after Circle revealed that $3.3 billion, about 8% of its reserves, were jeopardized by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank the day before. It regained the peg four days later. For a product whose whole pitch is that a dollar is a dollar, that was a long weekend.
That is why this rivalry never settles. Binance USD and USD Coin both promised a steady dollar, so the argument was never about price. It was about who you trust to hold the reserves, tell you the truth about them and stay on the right side of regulators. One coin came from an exchange with a famously busy regulatory record. The other came from Circle, with Coinbase and a consortium in its early story. Trust is a feeling before it is a number, and feelings are what people bet on.
The matchup keeps turning up on Morfi, where people back their opinions with money. The figures below come from opinion markets on Morfi, and the consensus levels measure conviction per side, not headcounts. Across two markets, Binance USD finished ahead in one and USD Coin in the other. Tether won both. We have thoughts.
Ser, Check the First Market
Hodl HannahCrypto & Degen Culture
Let me say it plainly, as someone who has been rugged by better charts than this. In the first market, the one asking for the most trusted stablecoin, Binance USD sat at 12% consensus and USD Coin at 3%. That is not a rounding error. Four times the conviction, ser. The crowd looked at the supposedly respectable coin and gave it three percent. Number go up, but not for the blue-chip option.
Yes, the second market flipped it, with USD Coin at 20% and Binance USD at 16%. I know. But that room was small, fifteen traders against forty-eight in the first, and a thin book is a mood, not a verdict. I covered it in my own write-up of the Tether result, where I checked the numbers twice and still felt a bit sick.
Now the part where I stay honest, because I am ngmi if I am not. Binance USD was a coin tied to an exchange, and the brief on its regulatory record is the elephant in the group chat. But USD Coin also had its Silicon Valley Bank weekend, plus a June 2021 website tweak from backed by US dollars to backed by fully reserved assets. Nobody gets a clean sheet in this market. Degens price in the mess. That is the case for BUSD: it never pretended to be the grown-up, and the crowd noticed.
Trust Is Built by Institutions, Not Vibes
Rex LedgerLiberty & Policy
Montesquieu held that power must check power, and I have never found a better test for a stablecoin. By that standard USD Coin has the stronger résumé. It was announced on May 15, 2018 and launched that September through Centre, a consortium of Circle and Coinbase. It was regularly attested by Grant Thornton, and in January 2023 Circle said it had engaged Deloitte as its auditor for reserve reporting. Auditors, disclosure, accountable counterparties: that is the rule of law, dressed in a hoodie.
Look also at how it earned its place in the open economy. On March 29, 2021, Visa announced support for USDC for settling transactions. By July 2022 circulation had reached $55 billion. Then, according to data compiled by Visa, it overtook Tether in stablecoin transaction volume in August 2024. That is adoption by people who actually move money, which is a kind of vote more durable than any market narrative. I am aware I am preaching. I will continue.
Yes, the crowd gave USD Coin only 3% consensus in the first market, and I will not pretend that is flattering. But look at the second market, where the larger and more varied field put it at 20%, second only to Tether and ahead of Binance USD at 16%. Compromise is the Enlightenment's great virtue. The crowd's trust in USDC is lukewarm, but a coin that survived a bank failure, regained its peg in four days and kept publishing is the one that learned something. Hannah calls that a mess. I call it accountability under stress.
The Wrong Question, Efficiently Answered
Penny SterlingMoney & Markets
Market report. Across two markets, Binance USD and USD Coin split the head-to-head one apiece, which is the kind of result that gives everyone enough to quote and no one enough to frame. Tether finished first both times, at 45% consensus in the first market and 31% in the second. Binance USD and USD Coin spent the season fighting for the silver medal in a race where the gold had already gone home.
I have written up the first result already, and my view has not improved. In that market Pax Dollar took 37%, ahead of both of our contestants combined. The crowd has apparently decided that the most trusted stablecoin is whichever one the auditors have been least successful at inviting to dinner. This is a coherent philosophy. It is not a flattering one.
So I back neither, or rather the third side. The better question is not Binance USD or USD Coin but what trust in a dollar token even means when it is polled among forty-eight traders in one market and fifteen in another. Both coins have a record. One was a casualty of its own corporate parent. The other had a bad weekend with a bank. Rex finds that reassuring, and Hannah finds it relatable. I find it a reminder that a peg is a promise, and promises are priced by whoever is currently nervous.
Round table
- Hodl Hannah
- Rex, straight question: the crowd gave USDC 3% consensus in the first market. How is that a mandate for your auditors and your Deloitte?
- Rex Ledger
- Hannah, it is a small room of forty-eight traders, and the larger field in the second market put USDC above BUSD. Institutions win slowly. Now answer me: can a coin win a trust poll by being the less respectable option?
- Hodl Hannah
- Ser, in degen land, yes. Honest chaos beats polished spin. Penny, you keep saying wrong question. What is the right one?
- Penny Sterling
- Who trusts whom, with how much money, and for how long. Trust measured over one afternoon is a mood. Trust measured over a bank weekend is a result. The crowd has only run the first test.
- Rex Ledger
- That is almost an endorsement of my case. My opinion, not a forecast with a guarantee: USDC keeps its second-place spot in future trust markets, because transparency compounds.
- Hodl Hannah
- My opinion, and not advice, ser: BUSD keeps showing up as the underdog pick whenever a market is thin and loud, and the next small room will flip it again.
- Penny Sterling
- My opinion: Tether wins the next market too, and the head-to-head between these two stays within a few points of level, which is the polite way of saying nobody has convinced anybody.
Every market, newest first
- Breaking
Most trusted stablecoin brand
Binance USD 16%USD Coin 20%
Degens Crown Tether the Most Trusted Stablecoin and Yes, I Checked Twice, Ser - Breaking
Most trusted stablecoin
Binance USD 12%USD Coin 3%
Crowd Crowns Tether the Most Trusted Stablecoin, and the Auditors Are Told Their Invitation Was Lost in the Post