2025 Global Stablecoin Industry Development Report: Dollar Stablecoins Dominate the Market, USDC Expected to Surpass USDT Around 2030

2025 is an important milestone in the development of stablecoins. This year, stablecoins not only reached new highs in market size and trading activity, but regulatory policies and capital attention also accelerated simultaneously. This asset class, which initially served as a "safe haven" tool within the crypto market, is gradually evolving into a frontier in global payments, cross-border trade, DeFi infrastructure, and even sovereign credit.

A recently published 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 global financial landscape. The report tracks and analyzes the overall stablecoin industry, combining on-chain transaction data, policy developments, and industry evolution paths, and systematically organizes and analyzes it from six dimensions: development history, market structure, application scenarios, global regulation, development potential, and potential risks.

US dollar stablecoins hold an absolute advantage

The report shows that in the global stablecoin market, the market share of US dollar stablecoins holds an absolute advantage, with an issuance volume 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. Other fiat stablecoins such as the yen, pound, won, and lira range from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of USD. This indicates that non-US dollar fiat stablecoins still have significant room for development.

As of July 2025, the total market capitalization of global stablecoins has exceeded $250 billion, showing significant growth 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 duopoly in the stablecoin sector. At the same time, the total on-chain transaction volume reached $36.3 trillion, surpassing the total annual transaction volume of Visa and Mastercard, becoming a new cornerstone of the global payment network. Notably, 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 round of outbreak is not a flash in the pan, but the result of multiple forces working together:

1. Major economies such as the US, Europe, and Hong Kong are gradually advancing stablecoin legislation, and the regulatory path is becoming increasingly clear;
2. Many traditional financial and technology giants have entered the market;
3. A stablecoin issuance company successfully went public in the United States, igniting the imagination of the capital market regarding stablecoins;
4. Users in countries with high inflation (such as Argentina, Turkey, Nigeria) regard it as a "digital dollar" hedging tool;
5. 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 active stablecoin addresses worldwide has exceeded 30 million, and the total on-chain holding addresses have surpassed 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, 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 hedging anchors" to "mainstream assets in digital finance." Since the beginning of this year, several global tech giants and financial institutions have successively increased their investments in stablecoin arrangements:

• A certain stablecoin issuer successfully listed on the US stock market, with a market value approaching 100 billion RMB at one point, becoming the first "quasi-systemic financial company" in the stablecoin industry;
• Multiple payment giants integrate stablecoin settlements: a certain payment platform launches its own stablecoin and goes live on a high-performance public chain; another payment company introduces USDC in B2B settlements with partners;
• Domestic e-commerce giants and fintech companies are entering the Hong Kong stablecoin market: A certain e-commerce platform's stablecoin has entered the regulatory sandbox testing phase in Hong Kong, with application scenarios including cross-border payments, investment transactions, and consumer settlement;
• Retail giants support stablecoin payments: Promoting the direct use of stablecoins for online retail payments through partnerships with payment service providers;
• Emerging public chains with high growth: Some new public chains attract a large amount of stablecoin deployment with low fees and high scalability, with the market value of one public chain's stablecoin growing by over 600% this year.

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

Structural Uncertainty Remains Behind the Scale Boom

However, behind the hot market performance, stablecoins also face many 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 70-80% of it is made up of "virtual traffic" such as transfers by bots and internal exchanges, and the actual usage scale on the consumer or enterprise side still needs further exploration and definition.

Secondly, there is the issue of "anchoring mechanism and transparency." Although a certain mainstream stablecoin is at the top of the industry, it has yet to release 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, while another mainstream stablecoin is more transparent and compliant, there is still a gap in terms of application popularity and ecosystem integration compared to the former.

In addition, there are still differences and games between regulatory policies of various countries. Some regions have yet to open up the use of stablecoins, while some markets (such as Hong Kong and Singapore) have actively taken on the role of a testing ground 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 reserves to be 100% high-liquidity assets (such as cash and short-term U.S. Treasury bonds). If this legislation comes into effect, it will profoundly impact the operational logic of existing mainstream stablecoins and the global compliance structure.

Report Highlights: A Comprehensive Overview of the Evolutionary Path of Stablecoins Across Six Dimensions

This industry 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 Landscape: Detailed analysis of the "USDT+USDC" dual oligopoly structure, public chain issuance share distribution, 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.
4. Global Regulation: Systematically sorting out the regulatory dynamics and legislative paths of major economies such as the U.S., 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 regulatory issues.

The report also specifically pointed 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 USD, while the market capitalization of stablecoins for currencies such as the yen, pound, and won is mostly in the tens of millions of USD, indicating significant room for future expansion.