Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency designed to mimic the price of a mainstream asset, usually the US dollar. The Trump administration has embraced them, pushing through specific legislation in July under the Genius Act. That in turn led to wider adoption of the technology among institutions, with heavyweights such as Standard Chartered, Walmart and Amazon exploring launches. World Liberty Financial Inc., one of the Trump family’s crypto ventures, launched a stablecoin called USD1 in March.While total flows rose in 2025, the share of volumes on decentralized crypto platforms fell, indicating broader mainstream use and “a sign of mass adoption of digital US dollars, especially in an increasingly volatile geopolitical landscape,” said Anthony Yim, co-founder of Artemis. Citizens of countries dogged by inflation and instability prefer to hold dollars, and stablecoins are the easiest way to do that, Yim added.
According to data from CoinGecko, Tether’s USDT is the largest stablecoin in the world by market value, with a mintage of $187 billion. That dwarfs Circle’s USDC, whose market value is $75 billion.
Still, Artemis data suggests that USDC dominates transaction flows.
USDC is the preferred stablecoin on decentralized finance or “DeFi” platforms, which conduct lending or trading activities using automated blockchain software. DeFi traders often switch from position to position, meaning the same dollar of USDC is recycled many times, Yim said. In contrast, Tether is more commonly used for everyday payments, business transactions, or simply to hold value, so people tend to keep it in their wallets rather than move it.
“USDT volume is more evenly distributed across simple transfers that resemble real-world payment behavior and trade settlement,” Tether Chief Executive Officer Paolo Ardoino said in a statement. “When isolating transactions where a user only sends stablecoins to one counterparty, USDT accounted for approximately 70% of total stablecoin volume in 2025, across all stablecoins.”Tether owns less than 1% stake in Artemis.
The Genius Act set clear regulatory standards for stablecoins, and people are choosing USDC “because it offers the deepest liquidity and highest level of regulatory trust in the world,” said Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer and head of global policy and operations at Circle.
While the US and other countries have embraced stablecoins, some remain wary. The International Monetary Fund said in October that the stablecoin market could threaten traditional lending, hamper monetary policy and trigger a run on historically safe assets.
Yet the growth of stablecoins is accelerating. Transaction volumes in the fourth quarter of 2025 reached a record $11 trillion, up from $8.8 trillion in the third quarter, according to Artemis data.
Total payment flows from stablecoins could reach $56 trillion by 2030, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence.
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