2025 Stablecoin Industry Report: US Dollar Stablecoins Dominate, USDC May Surpass USDT by 2030

2025 is a critical year for the development of stablecoins. In this year, stablecoins reached new highs in market size and trading activity, with regulatory policies and capital attention accelerating accordingly. This asset class, which initially served as a "safe haven" within the crypto market, is gradually expanding into global payments, cross-border trade, decentralized financial infrastructure, and even frontier areas involving sovereign credit.

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

US Dollar stablecoins dominate

Research has found that in the global stablecoin market, the US dollar stablecoin holds an absolute dominant position, with a circulation of 256.4 billion USD. Fiat stablecoins from other countries are still in the early stages, with the euro stablecoin ranking second at only 490 million USD. The scale of stablecoins for other currencies such as the yen, pound, won, and lira ranges from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of USD. This indicates that non-US dollar fiat stablecoins still have significant growth potential.

As of July 2025, the total market capitalization of global stablecoins has exceeded $250 billion, significantly increasing compared to the beginning of the year. Among them, the combined market capitalization of the two major stablecoins, USDT and USDC, accounts for 86.5% of the market, forming a dual oligopoly. Notably, the total on-chain transfer volume reached $36.3 trillion, surpassing the annual transaction volume of Visa and Mastercard, becoming a new pillar of the global payment network. In addition, USDC showed significant growth in 2025, reaching 40.9%, and if this growth rate continues, it is expected to surpass USDT around 2030.

This rapid development is not a coincidence, but the result of multiple factors working together:

• Major economies are successively advancing stablecoin legislation, and the regulatory path is becoming clearer.
• Traditional finance and tech giants are entering the stablecoin space.
• A certain stablecoin issuance company successfully went public, sparking the capital market's imagination about stablecoins.
• Users from multiple high-inflation countries (such as Argentina, Turkey, and Nigeria) are using stablecoins as a "digital dollar" hedging tool.
• Emerging applications such as decentralized finance, tokenization of physical assets, and payment settlements continue to create real demand for stablecoins.

From the perspective of on-chain activity, the number of monthly active stablecoin addresses worldwide has surpassed 30 million, and the total number of holding addresses has exceeded 168 million. According to data from a payment company, after excluding bots and exchange wallets, the proportion of transactions dominated by real users has increased from less than 15% in 2023 to around 22% currently, indicating a gradual shift in the user structure from arbitrage bots to enterprises and individual users.

Stablecoins Enter the "Mainstream Battlefield"

The role of stablecoins is evolving from "trading hedging tools" to "mainstream digital financial assets." Since the beginning of this year, many global tech giants and financial institutions have increased their involvement in stablecoins:

• A stablecoin issuing company went public on the US stock market, with a market capitalization approaching 100 billion RMB at one point, becoming the industry's first "quasi-systemically important financial institution".
• International payment giants launch their own stablecoin and go live on a high-performance public chain; a payment network introduces USDC in B2B settlements with payment service providers.
• Domestic e-commerce giants and fintech companies are entering the Hong Kong stablecoin market, with application scenarios including cross-border payments, investment transactions, and consumer settlements.
• Global retail giants are promoting the direct use of stablecoins for online retail payments by collaborating with cryptocurrency exchanges.
• Emerging public chains attract a large number of stablecoin deployments with low fees and high scalability, with the market value of stablecoins on a certain public chain growing over 600% this year.

The combined driving forces of traditional finance, internet platforms, and the native power of cryptocurrency have upgraded stablecoins from "crypto-specific settlement tools" to widely available digital payment intermediaries, while also raising higher requirements for their regulatory compliance.

Structural Challenges Behind the Scale Boom

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

First, there is the issue of "real usage scale." The report points out that although the overall transfer amount of stablecoins reaches 36 trillion USD, 70 to 80 percent of this may consist of "virtual traffic" such as transactions by bots or internal transfers within exchanges, and the actual usage scale by individuals or enterprises still needs to be further clarified.

The second issue is the "anchoring mechanism and transparency" problem. The market-leading stablecoins have not yet released complete audit reports, and their reserve asset structures and risk exposures have long sparked market controversy. Although another major stablecoin is more transparent and compliant, there are still gaps in its application popularity and ecosystem integration.

In addition, there are still differences and games between regulatory policies in various countries; some regions have not yet opened up the use of stablecoins, while some markets have actively taken on the role of a testing ground for institutional innovation.

It is worth noting that the relevant legislation in the United States has clearly stated that stablecoins are not considered securities, prohibits algorithmic stablecoins, and requires reserves to be 100% in highly liquid assets (such as cash and short-term U.S. Treasury bonds). If this legislation is formally enacted, it will profoundly affect the operational logic of existing mainstream stablecoins and the global compliance structure.

Six Dimensions Comprehensive Perspective on the Evolution of Stablecoins

The report provides a comprehensive overview of the development of stablecoins from six dimensions using on-chain statistics, classification tracking, and cross-validation of public information:

1. Development History: A Review of the Ten-Year Evolution of Stablecoins
2. Market Landscape: Detailed analysis of the dual oligopoly structure, distribution of public chain issuance shares, monthly active user trends, and other key data.
3. Application Scenarios: Focus on the key role of stablecoins in cross-border payments, decentralized finance, retail payments, and the tokenization of physical assets.
4. Global Regulation: Systematic Review of Regulatory Dynamics and Legislative Pathways in Major Economies
5. Future Potential: Analyzing how stablecoins can become a global payment network, the purchasing power of US Treasury bonds, and the competitive and cooperative relationship with central bank digital currencies.
6. Risk Warning: Covers potential challenges such as de-pegging, audit transparency, systemic attacks, and anti-money laundering regulatory issues.

The report also specifically points out that current non-U.S. dollar stablecoins are still in the early stages of development: the market capitalization of euro stablecoins is less than $500 million, while the market capitalizations of yen, pound, and won stablecoins are mostly in the tens of millions of dollars, indicating significant expansion potential in the future.