PANews released the "2025 Global Stablecoin Industry Development Report": US dollar stablecoins occupy 99% of the market, USDC is expected to surpass USDT in 2030

Author: Frank, PANews

2025 is a critical year in the development of stablecoins.

In this year, stablecoins not only set new records in market size and trading activity, but also accelerated regulatory policies and capital attention. An asset class that originally originated from a "safe haven" tool within the crypto market is gradually moving to the forefront of global payments, cross-border trade, DeFi infrastructure and even sovereign credit.

The 2025 Global Stablecoin Industry Development Report jointly released by PANews and Mobile Payment Network 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 operating pattern. The report tracks and analyzes the overall situation of the stablecoin industry, combining on-chain transaction data, policy progress and industry evolution path, and systematically sorts out and analyzes the six dimensions of development history, market structure, application scenarios, global supervision, development potential and potential risks. (The full report can be downloaded at the end of the article)

US dollar stablecoins have an absolute advantage

The report found that in the global stablecoin market, the market share of US dollar stablecoins is absolutely dominant, with an issuance volume of US$256.4 billion, while the legal currency stablecoins of other countries are still in their infancy, and the second-ranked euro stablecoin is only US$490 million. The scale of Japanese yen, British pound, Korean won, and lira stablecoins is between hundreds of thousands of dollars and tens of millions of dollars. In this regard, non-US legal currency stablecoins still have great potential.

As of July 2025, the total market value of global stablecoins has exceeded US$250 billion, a significant increase from the beginning of the year. Among them, the combined market value of Tether (USDT) and USDC issued by Circle accounts for 86.5% of the market, forming a duopoly in the stablecoin field. At the same time, the total annual transfer volume on the chain is as high as US$36.3 trillion, surpassing the total annual transaction volume of Visa and Mastercard, becoming a new cornerstone of the global payment network. In addition, USDC has a significant growth rate in 2025, reaching 40.9% during the year. Based on this growth rate, USDC is expected to surpass USDT around 2030.

This outbreak is not a flash in the pan, but the result of multiple forces:

• Major economies such as the United States, Europe, and Hong Kong have successively promoted stablecoin legislation, and the regulatory path is becoming clearer;

• Traditional financial and technology giants such as JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, PayPal, JD.com, and Ant Group have all exited the market;

• USDC's parent company Circle successfully went public in the United States, igniting the capital market's imagination for stablecoins;

• Users in many countries with high inflation (such as Argentina, Türkiye, and Nigeria) view it as a safe haven for “digital dollars”;

• Emerging scenarios such as DeFi, RWA, and payment settlement continue to inject actual demand into stablecoins.

In terms of on-chain activity, the number of monthly active stablecoin addresses worldwide has exceeded 30 million, and the total number of on-chain currency holding addresses has exceeded 168 million. According to Visa data, after excluding robots and exchange wallets, the proportion of transactions led by real users has increased from less than 15% in 2023 to about 22% at present, and the user structure is gradually transitioning from arbitrage robots to enterprises and retail investors.

From Circle to JD.com, stablecoins enter the "mainstream battlefield"

The role of stablecoins is being upgraded from a "trading safe-haven anchor" to a "mainstream digital financial asset". This year, many global technology giants and financial institutions have successively increased their stablecoin layout:

• Circle goes public: Stablecoin issuer Circle was successfully listed on the U.S. stock market, with a market value approaching RMB 100 billion, becoming the first "quasi-systemic financial company" in the stablecoin industry;

• PayPal and Visa integrate stablecoin settlement: PayPal launches PYUSD stablecoin and launches it on high-performance public chains such as Solana; Visa and Worldpay introduce USDC in B2B settlement;

• JD.com and Ant enter Hong Kong stablecoin: JD.com's stablecoin has entered the Hong Kong regulatory sandbox testing phase, with application scenarios including cross-border payments, investment transactions, and consumer settlements;

• Shopify and Walmart support stablecoin payments: Retail giants promote the direct use of stablecoins for online retail payments through cooperation with Stripe, Coinbase, etc.

• High growth of emerging public chains: New public chains such as Base and Solana have attracted a large number of stablecoin deployments with their low fees and high scalability. The market value of Solana's stablecoin has increased by more than 600% this year.

The joint efforts of traditional finance, Internet platforms and crypto-native forces have upgraded stablecoins from "crypto-specific settlement tools" to widely available digital payment intermediaries, and also put forward higher requirements for their regulatory compliance.

Structural uncertainties remain behind the scale boom

However, behind the hot market performance, stablecoins also face many structural challenges and controversies.

The first is the issue of “real usage scale”. The report points out that although the overall transfer amount of stablecoins is as high as 36 trillion US dollars, 70% to 80% of it is composed of “virtual traffic” such as robots and internal transfers of exchanges. The real usage scale of C-end or enterprise-end still needs to be further explored and defined.

The second is the issue of "anchoring mechanism and transparency". Although USDT is at the top of the industry, it has not yet released a complete audit report issued by the "Big Four Accounting Firms". Its reserve asset structure and risk exposure have long been the focus of market controversy; and although USDC is more transparent and compliant, it still lags behind USDT in terms of application popularity and ecological integration.

In addition, there are still differences and games between the regulatory policies of various countries. Some regions have not yet opened up the use of stablecoins, while some markets (such as Hong Kong and Singapore) have taken the initiative to assume the role of a test field for institutional innovation.

It is worth noting that the U.S. "GENIUS Act" has clearly stated that stablecoins are not securities, prohibits algorithmic stablecoins, and requires that 100% of reserves be highly liquid assets (such as cash and short-term U.S. Treasury bonds). If this legislation officially takes effect, it will have a profound impact on the operating logic and global compliance structure of existing mainstream stablecoins.

Report highlights: A panoramic view of the evolution of stablecoins from six dimensions

This report jointly released by PANews and Mobile Payment Network uses the method of on-chain statistics + classification tracking + public information cross-validation to comprehensively sort out the development of stablecoins, covering the following six dimensions:

1. Development history: From BitUSD to USDT, DAI, and USDC, reviewing the evolution of stablecoins over the past decade;

2. Market structure: Detailed explanation of the core data such as the "USDT+USDC" duopoly structure, public chain issuance share distribution, and monthly active user trends;

3. Application scenarios: Focus on the key role of stablecoins in cross-border payments, DeFi, retail payments, and RWA;

4. Global regulation: systematically sort out the regulatory dynamics and legislative paths of major economies such as China, the United States, Europe, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea;

5. Future potential: Analyze how stablecoins can become a global payment network, the purchasing power of U.S. Treasury bonds, and the competitive relationship between CBDCs;

6. Risk warning: covers potential challenges such as de-anchoring, audit transparency, systemic attacks, and money laundering supervision difficulties.

The report also specifically pointed out that non-US dollar stablecoins are still in the early stages of development: the market value of the euro stablecoin is less than US$500 million, and the market value of currency stablecoins such as the yen, pound, and won are mostly in the tens of millions of dollars, and there is still huge room for expansion in the future.

Download the report here .