Stablecoin Industry Development Report: Dollar stablecoins dominate the market, USDC is expected to surpass USDT by 2030.

2025 will be a key year in the development of stablecoins. In this year, stablecoins set new records in market size and trading activity, while regulatory policies and capital attention have also significantly increased. As a "safe haven" asset class within the crypto market, stablecoins are gradually expanding into the forefront of global payments, cross-border trade, DeFi infrastructure, and even sovereign credit.

A recently published global stablecoin industry development report indicates that stablecoins have become one of the key infrastructures connecting traditional finance with the crypto world, and are changing the global financial operating landscape. 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.

USD stablecoins dominate

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

As of July 2025, the total market value of global stablecoins exceeds USD 250 billion, a significant increase compared to the beginning of the year. Among them, the combined market value of the two major stablecoins, USDT and USDC, accounts for 86.5% of the market, forming a duopoly in the stablecoin sector. Notably, USDC shows a significant growth rate in 2025, reaching 40.9%. If this growth rate continues, USDC is expected to surpass USDT around 2030.

The on-chain annual transfer volume of stablecoins reached as high as 36.3 trillion USD, surpassing the total annual transaction volume of Visa and Mastercard, becoming the new cornerstone of the global payment network. Currently, the number of monthly active stablecoin addresses worldwide has exceeded 30 million, and the total number of on-chain holding addresses has surpassed 168 million. 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.

Mainstream Institutions Actively Deploy Stablecoins

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

1. A stablecoin issuer successfully listed on the US stock market, with a market value once approaching 100 billion RMB, becoming the industry's first "quasi-systemic financial company".

2. A well-known payment company has launched its own stablecoin and is live on a high-performance public chain; another payment giant has introduced USDC in B2B settlements.

3. Large e-commerce platforms and fintech companies are entering the Hong Kong stablecoin market, with application scenarios including cross-border payments, investment transactions, and consumption settlements.

4. Retail giants are promoting the use of stablecoins for online retail payments directly by collaborating with cryptocurrency exchanges.

5. New public chains like Base and Solana attract a large amount of stablecoin deployment due to low fees and high scalability, with the market value of stablecoins on Solana growing by over 600% this year.

Development Challenges and Regulatory Outlook

Despite the booming stablecoin market, it still faces numerous structural challenges. The first is the issue of "real usage scale"; most stablecoin transfers are still composed of transfers by bots and internal transfers within exchanges, and the actual user adoption remains to be further explored. The second is the issue of "peg mechanism and transparency"; major stablecoins still face controversies regarding audit transparency and reserve asset structure.

In terms of regulation, there are still differences in policies among countries. The U.S. "GENIUS Act" has clearly stated that stablecoins are not considered securities, prohibits algorithmic stablecoins, and requires reserves to be 100% high liquidity assets. If this legislation is formally enacted, it will profoundly impact the operational logic of existing mainstream stablecoins and the global compliance structure.

Future Outlook

The report points out that non-US dollar stablecoins are still in the early stages of development and have significant room for expansion in the future. As regulatory policies gradually become clearer and traditional financial institutions actively participate, stablecoins are expected to play a greater role in the global payment networks, the purchasing power of US Treasury bonds, and the competitive relationship with CBDCs. However, challenges such as de-pegging risks, audit transparency, systemic attacks, and anti-money laundering regulations still require close attention.