2025 Global Stablecoin Industry Development Report: USD Stablecoins Dominate the Market, USDC Rises Rapidly

2025 is a key year for the development of stablecoins. In this year, stablecoins reached new highs in market size and trading activity, while regulatory policies and capital attention also significantly increased. As an asset class serving as a "safe haven" tool within the crypto market, stablecoins are gradually expanding into areas such as global payments, cross-border trade, DeFi infrastructure, and even sovereign credit.

A latest industry report indicates that stablecoins have become one of the most critical infrastructures connecting traditional finance with the crypto world, and are changing the landscape of global financial operations. 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, USD stablecoins hold an absolute advantage, with an issuance volume of 256.4 billion USD. In contrast, fiat stablecoins from other countries are still in their infancy, with the second largest being the Euro stablecoin at only 49 million USD. Other fiat stablecoins such as the Japanese Yen, British Pound, Korean Won, and Lira range from several hundred thousand to tens of millions of USD. This indicates that non-USD fiat stablecoins still have significant room for growth.

By July 2025, the total market value of global stablecoins has exceeded 250 billion USD, showing significant rise since the beginning of the year. Among them, the two major stablecoins, USDT and USDC, account for a total of 86.5% of the market, forming a duopoly. It is worth noting that the total on-chain annual transfer amount reached 36.3 trillion USD, surpassing the total annual transaction volume of Visa and Mastercard, becoming a new cornerstone of the global payment network. In addition, USDC has shown a notable growth rate of 40.9% in 2025, and at this rate, it is expected to surpass USDT around 2030.

The booming development of the stablecoin market stems from multiple factors:

1. Major economies are advancing stablecoin legislation, and the regulatory path is gradually becoming clearer.
2. Traditional finance and technology giants are entering the market.
3. A stablecoin issuance company successfully went public, igniting the imagination of the capital market.
4. Users in high inflation areas view stablecoins as a "digital dollar" hedge tool.
5. Emerging scenarios such as DeFi, RWA, and payment settlement continue to create actual demand.

From the perspective of on-chain activity, 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.

Tech Giants and Financial Institutions Accelerate Deployment

Stablecoins are evolving from "trading hedging anchors" to "mainstream digital financial assets." Since the beginning of this year, many global tech giants and financial institutions have gradually increased their layout in stablecoins:

• A certain stablecoin issuer went public in the US stock market, with a market value approaching 100 billion RMB at one point.
• A well-known payment company launched its own stablecoin and went live on a high-performance public chain.
• Large e-commerce platforms enter the Hong Kong stablecoin market, involving scenarios such as cross-border payments, investment trading, and consumer settlement.
• Retail giants support stablecoin payments, promoting their application in the online retail sector.
• Emerging public chains attract a large number of stablecoin deployments due to low fees and high scalability, with a certain public chain's stablecoin market value rising over 600% this year.

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

Structural Challenges Behind Scale Rise

Despite the market's strong performance, stablecoins still face numerous structural challenges and controversies:

1. Real usage scale: Although the total transfer amount of stablecoins reaches 36 trillion USD, it is estimated that 70% to 80% of this may consist of "virtual traffic" such as transfers by bots and internal exchanges, and the true scale of usage on the consumer or enterprise side still needs to be further explored and defined.

2. Pegging Mechanism and Transparency: A leading stablecoin has yet to release a complete audit report, and there has been ongoing controversy regarding its reserve asset structure and risk exposure; while another major stablecoin is more transparent and compliant, there is still a gap in terms of application adoption and ecosystem integration.

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

It is worth noting that the stablecoin legislation being promoted by the United States may profoundly affect the operational logic of existing mainstream stablecoins and the global compliance structure.

Report Highlights: Six Dimensions to Perspective the Development of Stablecoins

This report comprehensively sorts the development of stablecoins from six dimensions using on-chain statistics, classification tracking, and cross-validation of public information:

1. Development History: A Review of the Ten-Year Evolution of Stablecoins
2. Market Landscape: Analyze core data such as the dual oligopoly structure, public chain issuance share distribution, monthly active user trends, etc.
3. Application Scenarios: Discuss the key role of stablecoins in cross-border payments, DeFi, retail payments, and RWA.
4. Global Regulation: An Overview of Regulatory Dynamics and Legislative Paths in Major Economies
5. Future Potential: Analyzing the potential of stablecoins in global payment networks, the purchasing power of US Treasury bonds, and the competitive relationship with CBDCs.
6. Risk Warning: Covers potential challenges such as decoupling, audit transparency, systemic attacks, and money laundering regulatory issues.

The report specifically points out that non-U.S. dollar stablecoins are still in the early stages of development, and there is still tremendous room for expansion in the future. The market value of euro stablecoins is less than 500 million USD, while the market values of yen, pound, and won stablecoins are mostly in the tens of millions of USD range, indicating the growth potential in this field.