3 Best Low-Fee Stablecoins Worth Considering

Find out which three low-fee stablecoins should be at the top of your list. We reveal the pros (and cons) of each one to help your decision-making.

Josiah Makori
By Josiah Makori
Kirsty Mac Dougall
Edited by Kirsty Macdougall

Published September 1, 2022.

Any trade you make on a crypto exchange has a basic trading fee. In most instances, the trading fee follows the maker/taker system, incentivizing stakers that provide liquidity by charging lower transaction fees.

Nonetheless, bids submitted to stablecoin markets, two fiat currencies, or wrapped tokens like WETH/ETH are charged a flat fee irrespective of whether they are maker or taker orders.

To view the comprehensive stablecoin fee structure, visit your exchange’s fee schedule page. You can see the fees you will be charged by checking the currency pair your bid falls under.

According to a recent stablecoin study conducted by the Department of Economics at Rutgers University, transaction fees vary significantly among the sampled stablecoins—Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), and Dai Stablecoin (DAI). Again, because the transaction costs affect block creation time, the cost and completion time are difficult to predict.

The study shows that:

  • The average cross-section fee of USDT is $3.44, with an average percentage fee of 0.20%.
  • The cross transaction fees for USDC are higher than USDT. Its average fee is $13.03, with an average fee of 0.84%.
  • DAI transaction costs are quite similar to those of USDC, though the medium cost for USDC is less by nearly $3.

Let’s have a closer look at each of these stablecoins:

USDT

USDT is the first and biggest stablecoin by market cap. USDT was developed by the BitFinex exchange in 2014 as RealCoin before rebranding to Tether in November of the same year.

The pros of USDT include high market capitalization, stability, and fast transactions. Its cons include centralization and lack of transparency regarding its fiat reserves.

USDC

Circle and Coinbase jointly developed the USDC stablecoin in 2018. It’s mainly backed by the US dollar and licensed by reserved assets.

USDC’s pros include being fully backed by US-regulated fiat reserves, transparency in its operations, and minimal price fluctuation. Its main drawback is having a lower market cap than USDT.

DAI

This is a crypto-backed ERC-20 token that is overcollateralized via Maker vaults. Unlike the stablecoins above, DAI embraces a decentralization approach through smart contracts and a governance token to control price stability.

DAI offers collateralized loans, uses smart contracts to lock tokens in contracts, and allows regular independent auditing of its reserves. Conversely, DAI seems a bit complex for crypto newbies and exposes users to smart contract risks, especially hacks.