HostUSDM vs DAI — price, size and safety, side by side
USDM (Ethereum) vs DAI (Ethereum) — every figure is the freshest dated measurement we hold for that token, never a live-feed guess. Prices stamped 2026-10-17 / 2026-10-17.
USDM vs DAI — normalized performance, 2026-09-21 to 2026-10-17T06:15:22
| USDM | DAI | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.9928 | $0.9976 |
| Market cap | $6.50B | $4.56B |
| 24h volume | $7.97M DEX | $10.35M DEX |
| Liquidity | $57.34M | $53.63M |
| FDV | $6.50B | $4.55B |
| Holders | 175 | 710,510 |
| Age (days) | 1,021 | 1,526 |
| Safety grade | B | B |
Where they differ
- DAI measures ~4,060× the holder count of USDM
What the data says
USDM
USDM is Mountain Protocol's yield-bearing dollar — a regulated, rebasing stablecoin that pays T-bill yield to holders by growing their balance rather than requiring a stake contract. The deployment 0xbbaec992fc2d637151daf40451f160bf85f3c8c1 is the Ethereum mint; our October 6, 2026 snapshot reads $57 million of tracked pool liquidity.
The honest mechanics: rebasing means balance and "value" move together — a wallet holding USDM sees the unit count tick up daily as yield accrues, which is elegant until accounting or a DeFi pool assumes a static balance. Regulated in Bermuda, permissioned to hold — both the feature set and the limitation come from the same compliance posture.
DAI
DAI answered a question the other stablecoins on this site don't ask: can a dollar exist on-chain without a company behind it? Since 2019, the contract at 0x6b175474e89094c44da98b954eedeac495271d0f has held near a dollar not because anyone promises redemption at a bank, but because every DAI is minted against locked crypto collateral worth more than it, with interest rates and liquidations — governed by MakerDAO, now rebranded Sky — doing the work a treasurer would. No single company can freeze your DAI or pause the contract; that censorship-resistance is the property its holders are actually paying for.
The honest complications have grown over the years. A large share of DAI's backing has long included centralized stablecoins and real-world assets, which reimports a slice of the issuer risk the design was born to escape — the March 2023 weekend when USDC's depeg dragged DAI to roughly $0.89 alongside it made that dependency visible. And the 2024 rebrand to Sky, with its upgrade path to the newer USDS token, means DAI is now the legacy branch of its own ecosystem: still enormous, still redeemable through the same machinery, but no longer where its creators' roadmap points. Neither fact is a defect; both belong in the price of holding it.
FAQ
Which is bigger, USDM or DAI?
By tracked market cap: USDM (Ethereum) measures $6.50B and DAI (Ethereum) measures $4.56B — dated snapshots, not a live feed.
Which is safer, USDM or DAI?
On the contract checks we publish: USDM (Ethereum) grades B and DAI (Ethereum) grades B. A grade is a structural check on the contract, not a promise about the asset.
How have USDM and DAI performed over the shared window?
Between 2026-09-21 and 2026-10-17T06:15:22, the measured snapshots show USDM at −0.40% and DAI at −0.26%.
The grade column is the one CMC's compare page cannot print — our grade is computed from the contract itself (mint/freeze authority, liquidity, holder concentration). Changes are measured over the shared window stated on the chart, 2026-09-21→2026-10-17T06:15:22; a token with fewer measured points measures a shorter span inside it.
Figures are dated on-chain snapshots, not a live feed. Safety grades are structural checks — not investment advice. Free · no signup · a HostDeFi product.