The "Three Kingdoms of Stablecoins": Profit Sharing in the $315 Billion Pool

In Q1 2026, the total market cap of stablecoins broke through $315 billion. Behind this data, there is actually a game among three completely different "profit models." As a holder, you need to see through the underlying ledger.
First is the "offshore giant" USDT.
Tether's current profits can even rival Goldman Sachs. Its logic is the simplest and most straightforward: I use your dollars to buy US Treasuries, buy Bitcoin, buy gold, and all the profits go into my pocket—no interest is shared with users. It’s non-compliant, it has a black box, but it has a key—liquidity. As long as all industry trading pairs are linked with USDT, it remains the "big but too big to fail" shadow central bank. If you use its convenience, you must accept being exploited for interest.
Next is the "compliance benchmark" USDC.
Circle takes the elite route, and after its IPO in 2025, it has become a compliant white-glove service. USDC’s reserve management is indeed transparent, but its biggest problem is "interest being drained by middlemen." You can see this clearly from its revenue-sharing agreement with Coinbase—Circle’s main profits are paid as protection fees to channel partners. The renewal in August 2026 is a hurdle; if negotiations fail, its profit margin will look very poor.
Finally, there is the disruptor USD1.
Its rise represents a third logic: interest redistribution.
Since regulators don’t allow direct interest payments on stablecoins, I return profits to users through WLFI’s ecosystem subsidies. This is essentially playing "rural encircles the city." Through CEX’s financial activities and various Launchpool supports, it has broken into the TOP 5 within a year. USD1’s core logic isn’t transparency but "interest bundling." It pulls in sovereign funds and exchanges for profit sharing, taking a portion of the profits that were originally swallowed by Tether and converting them into market share.
The situation is now clear: USDT relies on scale, USDC on compliance, and USD1 on subsidies.
In this blue ocean growing 80% annually, who will ultimately win? It depends on who can define the "scenarios." USD1’s current Agentic SDK and exclusive RWA settlement are building a moat for itself. As a practical player, I don’t care who is more "correct," only whose profit model can sustain longer. Currently, USD1’s "dividend logic" is indeed invincible during expansion.