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

2025 marks an important milestone in the development of stablecoins. In this year, stablecoins set new records in market size and trading activity, while regulatory policies and capital attention also accelerated. As a "safe haven" tool within the crypto market, stablecoins are gradually expanding into global payments, cross-border trade, decentralized financial infrastructure, and even influencing the realm of sovereign credit.

According to the latest "2025 Global Stablecoin Industry Development Report," stablecoins have become one of the key infrastructures connecting traditional finance and the crypto world, and are reshaping the global financial landscape. 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 stablecoin dominates

The report shows that the USD stablecoin dominates the global market, with an issuance 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, while stablecoins such as the yen, pound, won, and lira range from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of USD. This indicates that non-USD fiat stablecoins still have significant room for growth.

As of July 2025, the total market value of global stablecoins has surpassed $250 billion, showing significant rise compared to the beginning of the year. Among them, the combined market value of the two major stablecoins, USDT and USDC, accounts for 86.5% of the market, forming a duopoly in the stablecoin sector. It is worth noting that the total on-chain annual transfer amount reached $36.3 trillion, exceeding the annual transaction volume of Visa and Mastercard, becoming a new pillar of the global payment network. In addition, USDC performed exceptionally well in 2025, with an annual growth rate of 40.9%. Based on this growth rate, USDC is expected to surpass USDT around 2030.

This rapid development is not accidental, but the result of multiple factors working together:

• Major economies are gradually advancing stablecoin legislation, and the regulatory environment is becoming increasingly clear.
• Traditional finance and tech giants are rushing into the stablecoin sector.
• The parent company of USDC successfully went public, igniting the imagination of the capital market regarding stablecoins.
• Users in high inflation areas view stablecoins as a "digital dollar" hedging tool.
• Emerging application scenarios continue to inject actual demand into stablecoin.

From the perspective of on-chain activity, the number of global monthly active stablecoin addresses has exceeded 30 million, and the total number of holding addresses has surpassed 168 million. The proportion of transactions dominated by real users has risen from less than 15% in 2023 to around 22% currently, with the user structure transitioning from arbitrage bots to enterprises and retail investors.

Stablecoins Enter Mainstream Finance

Stablecoins are transitioning from "trading hedging tools" to "mainstream digital financial assets." Recently, several global tech giants and financial institutions have increased their investments in stablecoins:

• The stablecoin issuer successfully went public on the US stock market, with a market value approaching 100 billion RMB at one point.
• Large payment companies launch their own stablecoins and go live on high-performance public chains.
• A well-known e-commerce platform is entering the Hong Kong stablecoin market, testing cross-border payment and other application scenarios.
• Global retail giants support stablecoin payments, promoting their application in online retail.
• Emerging public chains attract a large number of stablecoin deployments due to low fees and high scalability.

The combined push of traditional finance, internet platforms, and the native power of cryptocurrency has upgraded stablecoins from tools exclusive to the crypto market to widely available digital payment mediums, while also imposing higher requirements for regulatory compliance.

Structural Challenges Behind Scale Growth

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

1. Real usage scale: Although the total transfer amount reaches 36 trillion USD, most of it may come from bots and internal transfers within exchanges, and the actual usage scale by individuals and businesses still needs to be further clarified.

2. Anchoring mechanism and transparency: The market-leading stablecoins have not yet released complete audit reports, and their reserve asset structure and risk exposure have been the focus of market controversy.

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

It is worth noting that the stablecoin legislation being advanced in the United States may have profound effects on the operational logic of existing mainstream stablecoins and the global compliance framework.

Report Highlights: A Comprehensive Overview of Stablecoin Development

This report comprehensively outlines the development of stablecoins from six major dimensions:

1. Development History: A Review of the Evolutionary Path of Stablecoins Over the Past Decade
2. Market Landscape: Detailed Analysis of Market Structure, Public Chain Distribution, and User Trends
3. Application Scenarios: Analyzing the Key Role of Stablecoins in Various Fields
4. Global Regulation: Review the regulatory dynamics and legislative paths of major economies.
5. Future Potential: Discuss the potential of stablecoins in global payments, government bond markets, and the field of CBDCs.
6. Risk Warning: Analyze potential challenges, including decoupling, audit transparency, and other issues.

The report particularly points out that non-US dollar stablecoins are still in the early stages of development, with significant expansion potential in the future. The market value of euro stablecoins is less than 500 million USD, while the market value of stablecoins for other currencies is mostly in the tens of millions USD, indicating great potential for future development.