2025 Stablecoin Industry Report: USD Stablecoins Dominate the Market, USDC Expected to Surpass USDT by 2030

2025 is a key year in the development of stablecoins. In this year, stablecoins set new records in market size and trading activity, with regulatory policies and capital attention accelerating in parallel. This asset class, originally serving as an "anchor" tool within the crypto market, is gradually expanding into the forefront of global payments, cross-border trade, DeFi infrastructure, and even sovereign credit.

A recently released industry report indicates that stablecoins have become one of the most critical infrastructures connecting traditional finance and the crypto world, and are changing the global financial operating landscape. The report systematically organizes and analyzes the stablecoin industry from six dimensions: development history, market structure, application scenarios, global regulation, development potential, and potential risks.

USD stablecoins hold absolute dominance

Research shows that in the global stablecoin market, the market share of USD stablecoins holds an absolute advantage, with an issuance of 256.4 billion USD. In contrast, fiat stablecoins from other countries are still in their infancy. The second-ranked Euro stablecoin has a scale of only 490 million USD, while stablecoins such as the Japanese Yen, British Pound, South Korean Won, and Lira range from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of USD. This indicates that non-USD fiat stablecoins still have significant room for development.

As of July 2025, the total market value of global stablecoins has exceeded $250 billion, showing significant growth since the beginning of the year. Among them, the combined market value of USDT and USDC accounts for 86.5% of the market, forming a duopoly in the stablecoin sector. Notably, the total on-chain transfer volume reached $36.3 trillion, surpassing the annual total transaction volume of Visa and Mastercard, becoming a new cornerstone of the global payment network. In addition, USDC has shown significant growth in 2025, with an annual growth rate of 40.9%. Based on this growth rate, USDC is expected to surpass USDT around 2030.

This outbreak is not a fleeting moment, but the result of multiple forces working together:

• Major economies such as the US, Europe, and Hong Kong are gradually advancing stablecoin legislation, and the regulatory path is becoming clearer.
• Many traditional financial and tech giants are entering the market;
• A certain stablecoin issuance company has successfully listed in the US, igniting the imagination of the capital market regarding stablecoins.
• Users in countries with high inflation (such as Argentina, Turkey, Nigeria) see it as a "digital dollar" hedging tool;
• Emerging scenarios such as DeFi, RWA, and payment settlement continue to inject real demand for stablecoins.

From the perspective of on-chain activity, the number of global monthly active stablecoin addresses has exceeded 30 million, and the total on-chain holding addresses have surpassed 168 million. According to the data, after excluding bots and exchange wallets, 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 the "Mainstream Battlefield"

The role of stablecoins is evolving from "trading hedge anchor" to "mainstream asset in digital finance." Since the beginning of this year, many global tech giants and financial institutions have been increasing their investments in stablecoins.

• A certain stablecoin issuer successfully listed on the US stock market, with a market capitalization approaching 100 billion RMB at one point, becoming the first "quasi-systemically important financial institution" in the stablecoin industry;
• Multiple payment giants integrate stablecoin settlements;
• Multiple tech companies are entering the Hong Kong stablecoin market;
• Retail giants support stablecoin payments;
• Emerging public chains with high growth: New public chains like Base and Solana attract a large amount of stablecoin deployment due to low fees and high scalability, with Solana's stablecoin market cap growing by over 600% this year.

The joint promotion of traditional finance, internet platforms, and the native power of cryptocurrency has upgraded stablecoins from "cryptocurrency-specific settlement tools" to widely available digital payment intermediaries, also raising higher requirements for their regulatory compliance.

Structural Uncertainties Remain Behind the Scale Boom

However, behind the hot market performance, stablecoins also face numerous structural challenges and controversies.

First is the issue of "real usage scale." The report points out that although the overall transfer amount of stablecoins reaches 36 trillion USD, up to 70 to 80 percent of this consists of "virtual traffic" such as transfers by robots and internal transfers within exchanges, and the actual usage scale on the C-end or enterprise side still needs to be further explored and defined.

Secondly, there is the issue of "anchoring mechanism and transparency". Although a certain mainstream stablecoin is at the top of the industry, it has not yet released a complete audit report issued by the "Big Four accounting firms", and its reserve asset structure and risk exposure have long been the focus of market controversy. On the other hand, another mainstream stablecoin, despite being more transparent and compliant, still has gaps in terms of application popularity and ecosystem integration compared to the former.

In addition, there are still differences and games among the regulatory policies of various countries. Some regions have not yet opened up to the use of stablecoins, while some markets (such as Hong Kong and Singapore) have actively taken on the role of experimental fields for institutional innovation.

It is worth noting that the U.S. "GENIUS Act" has clearly stated that stablecoins do not fall under securities, prohibits algorithmic stablecoins, and requires that reserves be 100% in high liquidity 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.

Report Highlights: A Comprehensive Overview of the Evolution of Stablecoins from Six Dimensions

The report comprehensively analyzes the development of stablecoins using on-chain statistics, classification tracking, and cross-validation of public information, covering the following six dimensions:

1. Development History: From BitUSD to USDT, DAI, USDC, a review of the ten-year evolution of stablecoins.
2. Market Structure: A detailed explanation of the "USDT+USDC" dual oligopoly structure, the distribution of public chain issuance shares, monthly active user trends, and other core data.
3. Application Scenarios: Focus on the key role of stablecoins in cross-border payments, DeFi, retail payments, and RWA, etc.
4. Global Regulation: Systematically sort out the regulatory dynamics and legislative paths of major economies such as China, the United States, Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea;
5. Future Potential: Analyzing how stablecoins can become a global payment network, the purchasing power of US Treasury bonds, and the competitive relationship with CBDCs;
6. Risk Warning: Covers potential challenges such as de-pegging, audit transparency, systemic attacks, and money laundering regulation issues.

The report also specifically points out that non-US 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 stablecoins for currencies like the yen, pound, and won are mostly in the tens of millions of dollars, indicating significant room for expansion in the future.