Stablecoin Industry Development Report: USD Stablecoins Dominate the Market, USDC Rises Rapidly

2025 is an important milestone for the development of stablecoins. In this year, stablecoins reached new highs in both market size and trading activity, while regulatory policies and capital interest also significantly increased. As a "safe haven" tool within the crypto market, stablecoins are gradually expanding into global payments, cross-border trade, decentralized financial infrastructure, and even involving sovereign credit and other areas.

An industry report points out that stablecoins have become one of the key infrastructures connecting traditional finance and the crypto world, changing the global financial landscape. The report provides a comprehensive analysis of the stablecoin industry from six aspects: development history, market structure, application scenarios, global regulation, development potential, and potential risks.

US Dollar stablecoins dominate

The report shows that in the global stablecoin market, the US dollar stablecoin holds an absolute advantage with an issuance of 256.4 billion USD. Other fiat stablecoins from different countries are still in the early stages, with the euro stablecoin ranking second at only 49 million USD. Stablecoins from other fiat currencies like the Japanese yen, British pound, South Korean won, and lira range from hundreds of thousands to millions of USD, indicating that non-US dollar fiat stablecoins still have significant growth potential.

By July 2025, the total market capitalization of global stablecoins has exceeded $250 billion, showing significant rise compared to the beginning of the year. Among them, the combined market capitalization of USDT and USDC accounts for 86.5% of the market, forming a dual oligopoly in the stablecoin sector. It is worth noting that the total on-chain transfer volume reached $36.3 trillion, surpassing the annual transaction volume of some mainstream payment networks, becoming a new cornerstone of global payment networks. In addition, USDC has shown remarkable growth in 2025, reaching 40.9%. Based on this growth rate, USDC is expected to surpass USDT around 2030.

This rise trend is driven by multiple factors:

• Multiple major economies are advancing legislation on stablecoins, with regulatory paths becoming increasingly clear.
• Traditional finance and tech giants are entering the stablecoin space.
• A stablecoin issuance company successfully went public, inspiring the imagination of the capital markets regarding stablecoins.
• Users in high-inflation areas view stablecoins as a "digital dollar" hedging tool.
• Emerging application scenarios continue to inject actual demand into stablecoins.

From the perspective of on-chain activity, the number of global monthly active stablecoin addresses has exceeded 30 million, and the total number of holding addresses has surpassed 168 million. According to the data, the proportion of transactions led by real users has increased from less than 15% in 2023 to around 22% currently, with the user structure gradually transitioning from arbitrage bots to enterprises and retail investors.

Stablecoins Enter Mainstream Financial Sector

Stablecoins are transitioning from "trading hedging tools" to "mainstream digital financial assets." Recently, several global tech giants and financial institutions have increased their investment in stablecoins:

• A stablecoin issuer successfully went public on the US stock market, with a market capitalization approaching 100 billion RMB at one point.
• Multiple payment giants have launched their own stablecoins and integrated existing stablecoin settlements.
• Domestic and foreign e-commerce platforms and retail giants have started to support stablecoin payments.
• Emerging public chains attract a large deployment of stablecoins, with the market value of stablecoins on some public chains rising over 600% this year.

The joint promotion of traditional finance, internet platforms, and the native power of cryptocurrencies has upgraded stablecoins from a "crypto-specific settlement tool" to a widely available digital payment medium, while also raising higher demands for regulatory compliance.

Structural Challenges Behind Scale Growth

Despite the strong performance of the market, stablecoins still face many structural challenges and controversies:

1. Issue of real usage scale: Although the total transfer amount reaches 36 trillion USD, as much as 70 to 80 percent of it may be composed of "virtual traffic" such as transfers by robots and internal transfers within exchanges.

2. Anchor mechanism and transparency issues: Major stablecoins still have disputes regarding the structure of reserve assets and risk exposure.

3. Regulatory policy differences: There are still differences and games among the regulatory policies of various countries, and some regions have not yet opened up to the use of stablecoins.

It is worth noting that the stablecoin legislation being advanced by the United States may have a profound impact on the operational logic of existing mainstream stablecoins and the global compliance structure.

Report Highlights: Analysis of Stablecoin Development from Six Dimensions

The report comprehensively outlines the development of stablecoins from the following six aspects:

1. Development History: A Review of the Ten-Year Evolution of Stablecoins
2. Market Landscape: An In-depth Analysis of the Current Market Structure and Core Data
3. Application Scenarios: Analyzing the Key Role of Stablecoins in Various Fields
4. Global Regulation: An Overview of Regulatory Dynamics and Legislative Pathways in Major Economies
5. Future Potential: Exploring the potential of stablecoins in global payment networks
6. Risk Warning: Analyze potential challenges such as de-pegging, audit transparency, and other issues.

The report specifically points out that non-USD stablecoins are still in the early stages of development and have significant room for expansion in the future. The market capitalization of euro stablecoins is less than 500 million USD, while other currency stablecoins have a market capitalization mostly in the tens of millions of USD.