When emerging markets sell off, does dollar-stablecoin supply follow or diverge?
As of Sep 2026 the three emerging-market equity indices on this page have moved +23.03% on average over the past year — Strong Risk-On. The page plots them against total stablecoin supply, normalized so instruments priced in tens and in tens of thousands can be compared.
Three indices triangulate the emerging-market risk backdrop: the Nikkei 225 for Bank of Japan policy and the yen-funded carry trades whose unwinds produce global deleveraging, the Hang Seng for Hong Kong and China sentiment, and MSCI EM for the broad benchmark global allocators use. Against them sits total stablecoin supply. The relationship is two-sided rather than directional: a broad EM sell-off usually means global dollar liquidity is tightening, which lifts stablecoin demand through flight-to-quality and dollarization while suppressing it through the tightening itself. Which effect dominates differs by episode, and this page shows the two series side by side rather than claiming one moves the other.
The composite in the tiles above is the mean of the one-year moves in this table, so it is reproducible from what is on the page.
| Index | Latest | 1-year move | Data from | What it carries |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nikkei 225 | 64,011 | +44.26% | Jan 2020 | Japan, and the yen carry trade |
| Hang Seng | 24,806 | -4.91% | Jan 2020 | Hong Kong and China sentiment |
| MSCI EM, via the EEM ETF | 67.84 | +29.74% | Jan 2020 | broad EM, priced as the ETF rather than in index points |
Four bands, placed by boundaries that are Stablecoin Beat’s own, each carrying the share of days it holds over 1480 windows of 365 days.
All three indices well up over the year. Historically this accompanies easing expectations and a softer dollar, the conditions under which capital returns to emerging markets.
Positive but unremarkable. Worth checking the table before reading it as broad: one index carrying the average while the others sit still is a country story, not an emerging-market one.
Modest annual declines. The narrowest of the four bands, and the least occupied, which is a property of the boundaries rather than of the market.
A broad emerging-market drawdown. Associated with dollar strength and tightening global liquidity, which is the setting in which the two effects on stablecoin demand pull hardest against each other.
The indices. Daily closing values for the Nikkei 225 and the Hang Seng Index.
Why the MSCI EM line is an ETF price. The MSCI EM lane is proxied by the EEM ETF price. EEM accrues an annual sponsor fee against net asset value, so multi-year level comparisons drift slightly below the index itself; short-window comparisons are unaffected.
Normalization. The re-based chart sets every series to 100 at the first date of the window drawn, which is why the comparison changes when the range does. Use the native panel for absolute levels and single-index episodes.
The composite. The mean of the three one-year moves, each measured between the latest observation and the last observation on or before the calendar cutoff, not by counting rows: the grid is business-day with steps of one to five days, so counting rows overshoots the window it claims.
Band labels. Boundaries at 15%, 0% and -10% are Stablecoin Beat’s own; no external standard divides this measure. They are reported above with the share of days each holds rather than described.
Correlation with the dollar. Computed on daily percentage changes, not price levels: two trending series can correlate in levels while their daily moves are unrelated.
What this page does not show. That EM equity moves cause stablecoin supply to move, or the reverse. Both respond to global liquidity and risk appetite, on different timescales and through different mechanisms — equity prices reprice continuously, while supply moves only as fast as issuance and redemption. Corridor-level flow data is not part of this dataset, so nothing here speaks to where demand is arising.
Updated daily. See the methodology for data sources and coverage.
Emerging-market equity indices carry the global risk-on and risk-off signal more cleanly than US equities, which are dominated by a handful of very large technology companies. A broad EM sell-off usually means global dollar liquidity is tightening, and that cuts both ways for stablecoin demand: flight-to-quality flows and faster dollarization in stressed countries lift it, while tighter liquidity suppresses it. In 2022 the second effect dominated and all four series fell: the Nikkei -10.95%, the Hang Seng -15.01%, MSCI EM -22.97% and stablecoin supply -14.97%.
The Nikkei 225 carries Bank of Japan policy and the yen-funded carry trades whose unwinds produce global deleveraging. The Hang Seng carries Hong Kong and, through it, China sentiment. MSCI EM is the broad benchmark global allocators use to express emerging-market risk. Between them they cover developed Asia, the Asia emerging-market gateway, and broad EM. None of the three is a measure of stablecoin demand; they are the risk backdrop against which supply moves.
It is the average one-year move across the 3 indices, currently +23.03%, placed in one of four bands whose boundaries are Stablecoin Beat’s own. Over the series each band holds: strong risk-on 37.8%; risk-on 34.7%; mild risk-off 9.4%; acute risk-off 18.1%. The most common condition is strong risk-on. A band label says where a reading sits in a range we have divided; it does not say whether the level is good for a stablecoin holder, which depends on which of the two effects above is dominating.
Inversely, on average. A stronger dollar pressures EM equities through three channels: emerging-market companies with dollar debt face higher local-currency servicing costs; capital flowing into dollar assets leaves EM equity markets; and EM central banks often raise rates to defend their currencies, compressing valuations. Over this series the daily returns of the Trade-Weighted Dollar Index and MSCI EM correlate at -0.48.
The Nikkei 225 fell 12.4% in a single session, its largest one-day percentage drop since 1987 and its largest ever measured in points. A Bank of Japan rate rise on 31 July met weak US jobs data on 2 August and yen-funded carry trades unwound quickly. It is the largest single-day decline anywhere in this series. Global equities fell sharply that day. The crypto series this page tracks did not: aggregate stablecoin supply stood at $164.45B and ended the week +1.05% higher.
Hong Kong is a significant venue for dollar-stablecoin activity in Asia, particularly around cross-border payments to and from mainland China, Southeast Asia and other Asia emerging markets. Corridor-level flow data is not part of this dataset, so Hang Seng moves are risk context rather than evidence of stablecoin demand, and this page makes no claim about how the corridor ranks against others.
The MSCI EM lane is proxied by the EEM ETF price. EEM accrues an annual sponsor fee against net asset value, so multi-year level comparisons drift slightly below the index itself; short-window comparisons are unaffected. The reading is therefore in dollars per share rather than in index points, which is why it sits near two figures while the Nikkei sits near five, and why the normalized chart exists at all.
That EM equity moves cause stablecoin supply to move, or the reverse. Both respond to global liquidity and risk appetite, on different timescales and through different mechanisms: equity prices reprice continuously, while supply moves only as fast as issuance and redemption. Where the two diverge, the divergence is a question rather than an answer.