Disclaimer: The Cambridge Digital Money Dashboard (CDMD) does not, and is not intended to, provide investment advice, due diligence, recommendations or evaluations of any type. It serves as a public data repository based on pooled data, using methods outlined in this section to the best of the research team’s abilities. The University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, its affiliates and any participating analysts do not accept any responsibility or liability for the information presented. The data on this website is provided for informative purposes only; we do recommend all information to be individually verified for the nature of its use.

The CDMD is an online resource that aims to provide interactive visual representations of up-to-date data on the following emerging digital money instruments:

• stablecoins

• central bank digital currencies

• tokenised bank deposits

• cryptoassets.

In the first stage of the CDMD (2024), the focus is on stablecoins. The current version represents the first iteration of this initial stage, and the dashboard focuses on the ten major USD-pegged stablecoins (based on stablecoin supply in USD as of 1 December 2023): USDT (Tether USD token), USDC (USD Coin), DAI (Multi-Collateral Dai), TUSD (TrueUSD), BUSD (Binance USD), FDUSD (First Digital USD), USDD (Deсentralised USD), FRAX (Frax stablecoin), USDP (Paxos Dollar), PYUSD (PayPal USD).

The CDMD is envisaged to be a one-stop platform that brings together relevant digital asset adoption and risk indicators, allowing for multi-stakeholder uses and comparison. It aims to offer policymakers, financial authorities, academics, industry and the general public access to reliable information and analytical tools for thorough and insightful decision making.

The development of the CDMD follows three guiding principles to create a comprehensive and trusted solution that monitors the evolution of stablecoins and other emerging digital money instruments:

1. The first guiding principle is providing education and conceptual understanding, covering such topics as what money is, the evolution of money and emerging digital forms of money. Our goal is to create a solid foundation that clarifies key concepts and terms used throughout the platform and facilitates an understanding of other research and industry publications on money in general and emerging money instruments in particular.

2. The second guiding principle emphasises the importance of interactive exploration of the data that positions digital money instruments within their own ecosystem, at both aggregate and individual levels. In this first CDMD iteration we focus on metrics like stablecoin supply, transfer activity and velocity, and also give first insights into the risks of stablecoins and risk mitigation approaches. By leveraging data from verifiable providers, the accurate conclusions and potential future trajectories of subsequent emerging money systems can be showcased and analysed.

3. The third guiding principle refers to the comparison of the emerging digital money forms against more conventional payment and investment instruments such as cash, e-money, money market funds and card networks. Our goal is to provide context and demonstrate where stablecoins and other money instruments fit into the broader financial and monetary landscape.

We are developing the CDMD through a public–private collaboration model, and collect data from various data providers and open sources. Compared to reports, the digital platform’s interface is more dynamic, user-friendly and intuitive. Its inherent agility enabled by timely updates should allow us to provide a near real-time depiction of the relevant data. We can update and embed new data into the digital platform as and when it becomes increasingly important, allowing it to have ongoing relevance. As a digital public good, the platform can be used to access updated data anytime and anywhere so long as the internet connection is available.

The CDMD is an ongoing project created and maintained by the Cambridge Digital Assets Programme (CDAP) Team at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, an independent research institute based at Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. 

The project is being implemented and managed by the team led by Roman Proskalovich with active support from Christopher Jack, Anton Dek, Diego Montes Serralde, Polina Vershinina, Abylay Satybaldy and Lukrecija Urneviciute. The CDMD would not have been possible without the continued guidance, support and feedback from Bryan Zhang, Keith Bear and Hunter Sims. The project is based on the original concept developed by Michel Rauchs and Muhammad Hakim Jaafar. Past contributions were made by Aleksandra Fiutowska, Matt Harding, Damaris Njoki and Yunus Emre Taşcı.

We would like to thank Gina Pieters, Marcelo Prates, Carey Mott, Michel Rauchs, Muhammad Hakim Jaafar, Simon Callaghan, Hugo Coelho, Alex Neumueller, Alexis Lui and Trish Chapman for their review and advice. Special thanks goes to Adriana Senior, Yvona Duncan and Kate Belger for their all-round support of this project.

The CDMD website is being developed and maintained by the development team, including Polina Kurdymanova, Anton Bondarenko, Dmitry Kovalyov, Ihor Radchenko, Vladyslav Ivelov and Hlib Yama. 

We highly appreciate the contribution of our data partners Lukka, Coin Metrics and Glassnode, who supported this project with valuable stablecoin data feeds. Finally, we would like to express our utmost gratitude to all the CDAP members who supported this project and provided it with continuous feedback during numerous working group meetings and follow-up reviews. Their contribution is core to the realisation of CDMD. 

Dashboard metrics

The dashboard considers the metrics and content elements outlined in the CDMD metrics and data feed table below. The following supporting text specifies what each dashboard metric or content element means and how they were calculated or obtained. The first CDMD iteration includes metrics provided by the data partners and . The project is also supported by , whose data is planned to be included in future iterations and has been used internally by the project team as a supporting data source.

CDMD metrics and data feed

Stablecoin supply

The supply of a stablecoin represents the sum of all native units ever created and visible on the ledger(s) (i.e. issued) at the end of an interval. This metric provides insights into the actual adoption and usage of the stablecoin, as well as fluctuations in demand and potential market trends.

The supply in USD (market capitalisation) is the total USD value of the stablecoin supply. This figure, also referred to as ‘network value’ or ‘market capitalisation’, defines the relative sizes of the stablecoin circles presented on the Aggregate stablecoin supply chart.

Transfers

Stablecoin transfers are transfers of units of a stablecoin between parties occurring and visible on chain. This does not consider off-chain transactions, such as transactions on centralised exchanges. Only non-zero value, successful transfers with distinct senders and recipients are considered to be stablecoin transfers. These transfers can involve sending or receiving stablecoins in exchange for other cryptocurrencies, as well as using stablecoins to pay for goods and services.

The adjusted value of transfers provides a more accurate reflection of the transfer activity. This metric tracks the sum of native units transferred between distinct addresses during a specified time interval, removing noise and certain artefacts that are not indicative of genuine economic activity.

By counting the total number and value of transfers involving a stablecoin within a designated time frame, valuable insights can be gained into the stablecoin’s adoption, usage, growth, stability and changes in demand.

Velocity

The term ‘velocity’ refers to the rate at which the average unit of a monetary form is exchanged within an economy. It is traditionally given by V=PY/M, where PY is the nominal value of the production (usually measured by the gross domestic product) and M is the measure of the size of the monetary form (usually M1 or M2 monetary aggregate is used). However, since stablecoins are a relatively new digital money instrument, there is currently no established or conventional approach to measure their velocity. In the first CDMD iteration, we calculate velocity according to this formula (1):

The adjusted transfer value metric is used with a trailing window of 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, 180 days and 360 days to correspond to the ratio selected by the user. The formula uses the active supply value (in native units) at the end of the respective trailing window.

The velocity chart also displays the 30-days moving average of the Bitcoin price and indicates periods of prolonged decrease in the adjusted value of transfers of a stablecoin. This information is intended to provide additional context reflecting major changes in the overall cryptoasset market and specific stablecoin environments, respectively.

A period of prolonged decrease in value of transfers signifies a period of four or more consecutive weeks (7-day periods) when the value of transfers is lower than during the previous week.

The moving average is a commonly used technical indicator in financial analysis to smooth out data and identify trends over a specific period. We use the following simple moving average with a 30-day window formula (2):

Peg stability

The peg stability of stablecoins is an indicator of how well a stablecoin maintains its peg relative to the underlying asset or basket of assets. The stability of a stablecoin's peg can be assessed by analysing its exchange rate against the pegged asset over time.

The mean provides an indication of the average price of a stablecoin over a specified period. It is calculated using formula (3):

The peg stability charts include standard deviation metric as a measure of dispersion. This metric analyses the stablecoin’s exchange rate against the pegged asset or basket of assets and calculates the standard deviation from the peg. A stablecoin with a low standard deviation is deemed more stable. The calculation is performed using formula (4):

However, we recommend interpreting standard deviation values cautiously and in conjunction with other measures of dispersion. This is because the price of stablecoins exhibits a non-normal distribution, characterised by a high concentration of observations around the mean (1 USD), a large positive kurtosis and skewness.

Ensuring the stability of a stablecoin’s peg is crucial for establishing it as a reliable store of value and to facilitate transactions. Additionally, it fosters trust in the stablecoin, promoting wider adoption among users.

The price distribution histogram provides a visual representation of the prices of a given stablecoin over a selected time period. The breaks of the histogram are predefined to show differences of 0.0004, and tooltips for individual histogram bars show the middle price in the interval. Accompanying the histogram is a density curve that smoothens the data. The density curve is included for illustrative purposes and should not be used for making predictive inferences about the underlying distribution.

Breaking the band calculator

Breaking the band refers to the scenario where the stablecoin’s price moves outside the specified range of its target value, typically set at 1:1 ratio with the asset it is pegged to.

The ‘band’ or a threshold refers to the range of acceptable deviations from the target value. For instance, a stablecoin might have a band of +/- 1% around its target value, indicating it is within an acceptable range as long as it trades within 1% above or below the target value. Conventionally, 1% is used as a target value in traditional finance by international monetary organisations such as the IMF.

If the stablecoin’s price moves outside the pre-defined threshold, it is considered to have broken the peg. Such an event can signal a loss of confidence in the stablecoin and may be accompanied by increased volatility or even a collapse of the stablecoin’s price. In response, the issuer may take corrective actions and restore the price by adjusting the supply, changing the composition of the backing assets or applying other stabilisation mechanisms.

The calculator displays the following metrics:

• Instances are all the events (strikes) when the stablecoin lost its peg, regardless of the longevity of such events.

• Overall time is the sum of all observations that did not fit into the selected interval.

• Continuous time describes an instance and refers to the number of subsequent hours when the price was above or below the desired threshold: two hours in a row, three hours in a row, etc.

• Maximum shows the maximum number of hours for an instance.

Reserves

The reserve asset composition of a stablecoin refers to the composition of assets that are held in reserve to back the stablecoin. The composition varies depending on the stablecoin. To determine the reserve asset composition, we analyse publicly available data from the issuer’s disclosures.

Understanding the reserve asset composition is important as it influences the stability of the stablecoin’s value and its ability to withstand market shocks. It also plays a role in mitigating risks with concentration in reserves.

Crypto actions timeline

The crypto actions timeline is intended to provide a context for the reserves data and other stablecoin metrics. The timeline is based on a comprehensive event feed that tracks the full history of a stablecoin and captures relevant major changes to the ecosystem, such as contract migrations, ticker changes, exchange listings/delistings and auditor changes.

Regulatory regimes

The Regulatory regime and requirements table offers users an overview of the regulatory environment for stablecoin issuers in a selected jurisdiction. It outlines various licence regimes, regulatory authorities at both the federal and state levels (if applicable), regulatory requirements, investor protection measures and more.

User agreements

The User agreements table offers viewers an overview of the key terms and conditions governing the relationship between users and stablecoin issuers. This table consolidates user agreements from various stablecoin issuers, allowing users to understand the common elements across different offerings.