Major Trading Hours in UTC:
Tokyo: 00 - 09 UTC
London: 07 - 16 UTC
NYSE: 13 - 22 UTC

Key 2023 Insights:

• USDT Volume Share peaks at 42% at 10 UTC, near the overlap of EU and Asia markets, where USDC Volume Share hits its lowest (49%) at the same hour.
• DAI sustains > 10% Volume Share from 23 - 05. For context, the Maker DAI Peg-Stability-Module (PSM) allows for 1:1 trading of DAI with USDC. It is possible US/EU traders use this 24/7 module more after NYSE hours to hedge USDC risk.

• The raw # of transfers (irrespective of size) is more volatile for USDT than other stablecoins.

• The Average # of USDT transfers rises nearly 40% between the 05 - 13 UTC hours. Which aligns to increase usage during London trading hours. It is interesting that this increase in # of transfers is so disproportionallly low to the increase in volume over those hours. This may indicate the increase in retail or small sized transfers in that time span.

• USDC transfers are more stable with the lowest average at 2,260 transfers on average at 05 and a highest average of 3,030 transfers at 15 UTC. This aligns roughly to London trading hours. Note that here, hours are rounded down such that a last minute 3:55 trade in London (15:55 UTC) would be tracked as 15 UTC.

LARGE TRANSFERS ($100,000+) FILTER

• Filtering to aggregate only transfers of at least $100,000 removes the USDT variance and instead showcases USDC's variance.
• USDC large transfer volume nearly doubles in the overlap of NYSE and London trading hours ($280M at 12 UTC to a peak of $522M at 16 UTC), returning to the baseline $300M after NYSE is closed at 22 UTC.
• The pattern of DAI's uptick between the all-markets closed hours of 22-23 is small in nominal terms but is a near doubling of $35M to $65M from 22 - 23.
• USDT average large transfer volume rises 83% from $127M at 05 to a peak of $233M at 10 (where Tokyo and London hours overlap).