2025 Stablecoin Industry Development Report: Dollar Stablecoins Dominate the Market, USDC May Surpass USDT by 2030

2025 will be a key year in the development of stablecoins. In this year, stablecoins not only set 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 expanding into global payments, cross-border trade, decentralized financial infrastructure, and even the cutting-edge areas involving sovereign credit.

According to an industry report, stablecoins have become one of the most important infrastructures connecting traditional finance and the crypto world, and are changing the landscape of global finance. The report provides a comprehensive tracking and analysis of the stablecoin industry, systematically organizing and analyzing the current state of stablecoin development from six dimensions, combining on-chain transaction data, policy developments, and industry evolution paths.

US Dollar stablecoins dominate

The report found that the market share of US dollar stablecoins dominates the global stablecoin market, with an issuance volume of 256.4 billion USD. In contrast, fiat stablecoins from other countries are still in their infancy, with the Euro stablecoin ranking second at only 490 million USD. 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.

By July 2025, the total market capitalization of global stablecoins has exceeded $250 billion, a significant increase from 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 annual on-chain transfer volume reached $36.3 trillion, surpassing the total annual transaction volume of major credit card companies, becoming a new cornerstone of the global payment network. It is worth noting that USDC has shown significant growth in 2025, reaching 40.9%. If this growth rate continues, USDC is expected to surpass USDT around 2030.

This growth is not a coincidence, but rather the result of multiple forces working together:

• Major economies are gradually advancing stablecoin legislation, and the regulatory path is becoming clearer.
• Traditional finance and technology giants are entering the stablecoin space.
• The parent company of USDC successfully went public, sparking the imagination of the capital markets regarding stablecoins.
• Users in multiple countries with high inflation regard it as a "digital dollar" hedging tool.
• Emerging application scenarios continue to inject real demand into stablecoins.

From the perspective of on-chain activity, the number of global monthly active stablecoin addresses has exceeded 30 million, and the total number of on-chain holding addresses has surpassed 168 million. According to the data, after excluding bots and exchange wallets, the proportion of transactions dominated by real users has increased from less than 15% in 2023 to about 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 a "trading hedge anchor" to a "mainstream asset in digital finance." Since the beginning of this year, many global technology giants and financial institutions have been progressively increasing their investments in stablecoins:

• The stablecoin issuer successfully listed on the US stock market, with a market capitalization nearing 100 billion RMB.
• Payment giants launch their own stablecoins and go live on high-performance public chains.
• Major payment companies are introducing stablecoins in B2B settlements.
• Large e-commerce platforms are entering the Hong Kong stablecoin market, involving scenarios such as cross-border payments, investment transactions, and consumer settlements.
• Retail giants promote the direct use of stablecoins for online retail payments through collaborations.
• The new public chain attracts a large number of stablecoin deployments with low fees and high scalability.

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, which also raises higher requirements for regulatory compliance.

Structural Challenges Behind Scale Growth

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

1. The "real usage scale" issue: Although the total transfer amount reaches 36 trillion USD, up to 70-80% of it consists of "virtual traffic" such as transfers by bots and internal transfers within exchanges. The actual usage scale by end users or enterprises still needs further exploration and definition.

2. "Anchor Mechanism and Transparency" issue: Market-leading stablecoins have yet to release complete audit reports, and the structure of their reserve assets and risk exposure has long been a point of contention in the market; meanwhile, more transparent and compliant stablecoins still face gaps in terms of application popularity and ecosystem integration.

3. Regulatory policy differences: There are still differences and games among regulatory policies in various countries. Some regions have not yet opened up the use of stablecoins, while some markets actively take on the role of experimental fields for institutional innovation.

It is worth noting that relevant U.S. legislation has clearly defined that stablecoins are not securities, prohibits algorithmic stablecoins, and requires reserves to be 100% high liquidity assets. If this legislation comes into effect, it will profoundly impact the operating logic of existing mainstream stablecoins and the global compliance structure.

Report Highlights: A Six-Dimensional Perspective on the Evolution of Stablecoins

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

1. Development History: A Review of the Ten-Year Evolution of Stablecoins
2. Market Landscape: Detailed explanation of core data such as market structure, distribution of issuance, user trends, etc.
3. Application Scenarios: Focus on the Key Role of Stablecoins in Various Fields
4. Global Regulation: Sorting out the regulatory dynamics and legislative paths of major economies
5. Future Potential: Analyzing the potential of stablecoins in global payments, government bond purchases, and competition with CBDCs.
6. Risk Warning: Covers potential challenges such as de-pegging, audit transparency, systemic attacks, and regulatory 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 USD, while the market capitalizations of stablecoins for currencies like the yen, pound, and won are mostly in the tens of millions of USD, indicating there is still significant room for expansion in the future.