The capitalization of stablecoins is around USD 260 billion, close to its maximum.
Inflows to Nexo have doubled since February, with peaks above $20 million.
The digital asset market shows a change in capital dynamics amid an adverse geopolitical and macroeconomic context. Darkfost, an analyst at CryptoQuant, maintains that investors are not withdrawing funds from the ecosystem, but rather moving them into stablecoins to preserve liquidity and generate returns.
The thesis is based on a still weak market. Bitcoin (BTC) is trading close to 39% of its all-time high of $126,000, reached in October 2025, while altcoins accumulate a loss of more than $900 billion in capitalization.
In this scenario, Darkfost proposes that capital is not leaving the ecosystem, but rather changing location. “Despite this difficult environment, one segment continues to show remarkable resilience: stablecoins,” points out the analyst.
According to their reading, the total market capitalization of these assets “remains stable and shows no clear signs of weakness,” with an estimated valuation “of around $260 billion,” which brings it closer to a new all-time high.
This adjustment occurs in parallel to a more uncertain global environment, marked by the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East and due to pressure on the Strait of Hormuz, a key maritime corridor for global energy trade. As CriptoNoticias has reported, any disruption there raises the risk of increases in energy prices, higher inflation and new tensions on assets considered risky.
The growth of stablecoins would not only respond to a search for refuge from volatility, but also to the advancement of financial services that allow obtaining returns without abandoning the ecosystem.
Darkfost attributes this dynamic to the “rapid development of financial services and products based on stablecoins.” As he explains, “today, these instruments allow investors to maintain their liquidity within the ecosystem while generating returns relatively passively.”
One of the cases that, according to the analyst, reflects this trend is Nexo, a company that offers financial services on digital assets, including paid accounts, loans and custody. Unlike a traditional exchange, oriented mainly towards buying and selling, Nexo focuses its proposal on capturing deposits and offering returns on those funds.
The graph shared by CryptoQuant reinforces that thesis by showing the behavior of stablecoin inflows into Nexo during recent weeks. Blue bars represent weekly inflows, calculated using a seven-day moving average. This metric allows the trend to be followed without daily noise and shows sustained growth since February.
According to Darkfost, “average weekly admissions have more than doubled, rising from around $8 million to nearly $15 million today, with peaks above $20 million in early April.”
The red line, on the other hand, shows the accumulated inflows of stablecoins into the platform. This curve maintains an upward slope throughout the period analyzed, which suggests that not only does new capital enter, but it also remains deposited. In the analyst’s words, “in total, approximately $30 billion in stablecoins have entered the platform.”
For Darkfost, those flows should not be interpreted solely as liquidity sent to a platform to invest later in the market. They can also reflect other behavior: a temporary migration towards lower volatility instruments. “In addition to representing liquidity sent to an exchange for investment in the market, these flows can also reflect different behavior when capital is directed to a platform like Nexo,” he explains.
This behavior would be linked with the search for passive income in an unfavorable context for risk assets. On that point, the analyst is explicit: “With USD Coin yields reaching up to 10% in some cases, certain investors are allocating funds to this platform to generate passive returns while they wait for market conditions to be more favorable.”
The move toward stablecoins suggests that, at least for now, a portion of the market is not choosing to retreat, but by withdrawing into the ecosystem itself.
The priority appears to be preserving liquidity, reducing exposure to volatility and capturing yield until clearer signals appear to return to assets like BTC or altcoins.