The stablecoin market welcomes a watershed moment, as Circle's listing opens a new era.

The stablecoin market is on the brink of explosion. The rigid demand for payments and transactions provides continuous growth momentum, while the trends of compliance, institutionalization, and mainstreaming are shaping it into the core infrastructure of on-chain finance.

Circle, as a compliant stablecoin representative, has landed on the US stock market, marking the official entry of stablecoins into the global capital market main stage. This is not only a commercial turning point but also a precursor to the reconstruction of financial order. Compliant stablecoins are no longer just on-chain circulation tools, but have become strategic agents for the global "de-banking and de-geographization" expansion of the US dollar.

It is expected that by 2030, the total market value of global stablecoins will reach 1.6-3.7 trillion USD, with growth mainly coming from three areas: cross-border payments, on-chain finance, and tokenization of real-world assets ( RWA ). Stablecoins will gradually become the "dollar liquidity core" in the Web3 ecosystem.

Circle faces a dual competition: one is the competition with native players like Tether in liquidity coverage, and the other is the competition with traditional financial giants in the output of stablecoin systems. Circle's advantages lie in compliance, early mover advantage, open infrastructure, and institutional trust, but it also faces challenges such as interest rate sensitivity and channel dependence.

Circle's IPO valuation is approximately $8.1 billion, with a price-to-earnings ratio of about 50 times. Its business model is transitioning from a single interest margin income to diversification, with a future focus on expanding on-chain payment APIs, cross-chain channels, and other non-interest margin income sources.

In the long term, the competition between USDC and USDT is no longer just a battle of market capitalization, but a full-stack competition representing different dollar systems, settlement paths, and regulatory compatibility. Whether Circle can become the universal circulation underlying layer of on-chain dollars will determine its future growth potential.

The stablecoin bill opens a new era of compliance, and Circle's IPO is just the prologue. What is truly being bet on is its key protocol layer role in the global on-chain dollar consensus system. The story of Circle will truly begin when USDC becomes the universal underlying "on-chain dollar."