Weekly recap: the big books fall a quarter, the deposit base holds

201,474

Deposits

down 4.9%, still 5th-highest ever

$43.27M

Retail deposit book

down 9.4%

12 of 25

Venues that grew

the fall is at the top

65.1%

Obiex's share

Total attributed stablecoin volume across the 26 venues we publish was $161,387,109 in the week of 12 to 18 October — down 22.9%.

At $47,895,701, that is the largest weekly decline we have published in dollar terms. In percentage terms it is not close to the worst — thinner years saw steeper falls on far smaller bases. The useful part is where it happened.

The three biggest books fell together

Obiex did $105,061,238, down 25.3%. Flutterwave did $21,592,758, down 23.5%. Quidax did $12,407,478, down 25.9%.

Three separate businesses, three different rails, each about a quarter smaller than the week before. Together they are 86.2% of everything we publish, which is why the market figure moves when they move.

Below them the week was ordinary. 12 of 25 venues grew and 13 fell — close to the split of any normal week. Monica was flat at $4,418,453 (−0.8%), Spenda $2,625,888 (−2.1%), VALR $3,116,189 (−2.2%). Raenest nearly tripled to $646,131, and Divest rose 4.7% to $860,385. The falls outside the top three were small: Daya Pro −38.4% to $848,029 and Luno −32.3% to $1,331,625 on bases under $2M.

The customers did not leave

Deposits fell 4.9% to 201,474 — the fifth-highest week in the series, behind last week's restated record of 211,892. Active wallets fell 2.6% to 60,567. The average retail deposit was $215, against $225 the week before.

So the deposit base is intact and the money per deposit barely moved. The retail deposit book fell 9.4% to $43,273,819, against 22.9% for the total.

The gap between those two numbers is the whole story. What fell was large-ticket flow, not retail activity. At Obiex alone, deposits above the retail band fell $32,484,354 — 91% of that venue's decline, and 68% of the market's entire $47.9M fall on its own.

What is set aside, and what it did

At Luno and VALR, per-client boxes above $1M lifetime are set aside rather than published, because a box that size is more likely a desk than a person.

That set-aside was $291,603,146 this week, up from $249,356,351 — it grew 16.9% while the market we publish fell 22.9%. We do not net the two together, and we do not count the carve-out. It is disclosed beside the number so you can see the shape of what we are leaving out.

September, and where October stands

September closes at $1,027,774,433, up 6.1% on August's $968,858,278. We sent you $1,026,907,045 a week ago; attribution drift moved it 0.08% and the direction is unchanged.

Through 18 October the month stands at $477,937,163. That is a slower daily pace than September, but a month is not a trend with twelve days left in it — we will publish October when October is closed.