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Crypto Stablecoins & Payments Research
Stablecoins are crypto's clearest product-market fit, a $300B+ market by mid-2026 that settles a dollar for under a cent in under a second, 24/7. Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC hold roughly 83% of supply between them, banks are being let in under new US rules, and the settlement layer is quietly becoming payments infrastructure. This is the framework the desk uses to read issuance, reserves and real volume, and why stablecoins are crypto's killer app.
Market metrics
Sources: open on-chain data, Visa Onchain Analytics, BCG/McKinsey/BIS, 2025-26.
Moving a dollar via stablecoins costs under a cent and settles in under a second, globally. A structural improvement over correspondent banking. Aggregate supply is also crypto's dry-powder gauge: expansion means buying power building, contraction means capital leaving. But the raw volume headline is misleading: most of the $27-33T is bots, arbitrage and treasury shuffling. The real prize is the sliver that is genuine payments, and that sliver is what is actually growing.
Who leads
| Issuer? | Why it leads? | Share / metric? |
|---|---|---|
| Tether (USDT) | Dominant reserve dollar; >$100B in US govt debt, deepest offshore liquidity | ~$184B · 59% |
| Circle (USDC) | The regulated dollar; now an OCC-chartered national trust bank | ~$73B · 24% |
| Everyone else | No third stablecoin has ever crossed ~3% of supply | <3% each |
| Visa | Distribution rail: 130+ stablecoin-linked card programs across 50+ countries | $7B run-rate |
| Stripe / Bridge | Stripe's largest-ever acquisition; stablecoins inside mainstream payments | infra |
How to read a row → Circle (USDC) · the regulated dollar · ~$73B · 24%: Circle issues USDC, ~$73B in circulation, about a quarter of all stablecoin supply. The No. 2 dollar and the compliant one to reach for.
Who to watch
- CRCL (Circle): the only listed pure-play; its OCC charter turns USDC into a bank product (what the charter buys)
- GENIUS Act rollout: implementation rules land mid-July 2026: 100% reserves, audits, a bank-issuance pathway
- Bank-issued stablecoins: US regionals and a JPMorgan-class entrant applying under the bank pathway; the margin threat to incumbents
- EURC / MiCA EMTs: the non-dollar leg; who wins euro stablecoin distribution
- Yield-bearing & PayFi dollars: tokenized-treasury-backed dollars and payment-first chains competing for the float
What's broken
- Volume is mostly noise: of $27-33T gross, only ~$350-550B is real-economy payments; cap and transfer volume flatter the story
- Margin compression is coming: the GENIUS Act's bank pathway lets banks mint their own dollars; incumbents' float economics are the target
- Reserve & depeg risk: the model is a money-market fund with instant redemption; a reserve scare is still the tail risk
- Regulatory chokepoint: a federally chartered issuer is a single point regulators can lean on; centralization cuts both ways (the chokepoint debate)
- Chain fragmentation: the same dollar minted natively across a dozen chains splits liquidity and complicates settlement
The desk methodology — what we track
The asymmetry is the stablecoin rail repricing before the volume is visible. The desk separates supply growth from real usage and tracks four triggers: net supply expansion vs contraction as a dry-powder read; genuine payment volume (merchant, remittance, treasury) versus wash and arbitrage churn; reserve quality and issuer regulatory standing; and where the float earns: issuer, bank distributor or chain. What would change our mind on the incumbents: a bank-issued or yield-bearing dollar taking real payment share, not just headline supply. Long regulated rails; track record since 2017.
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