The latest developments in the stablecoin sector: USDT’s market value exceeds $150 billion for the first time, competition between financial and technology giants is fierce, and Tether and Circle cons

Author: Weilin, PANews

On May 13, defillama data showed that the market value of stablecoins reached 242.821 billion U.S. dollars. Among them, Tether's USDT market value exceeded 150 billion U.S. dollars for the first time, reaching 150.663 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 62% of the market value. Closely following is Circle's USDC, which accounts for nearly 25% of the stablecoin market.

In recent months, there have been continuous developments in the crypto market regarding stablecoins. For example, due to changes in the U.S. regulatory environment, Tether plans to launch a new dollar-backed stablecoin in the U.S. later this year. Circle submitted a public offering registration application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 1, planning to go public.

At the same time, giants with financial technology genes such as Stripe and PayPal are also actively entering the market. Combined with financial companies such as BlackRock, traditional banks (such as Bank of America and Standard Chartered Bank) and income-based stablecoin projects, these companies are expected to impact the situation where Tether and Circle share the world, bring more innovation to the stablecoin market, and promote mass adoption. Stablecoins are being used for cross-border payments, DeFi protocols, and on-chain transactions, and are also said by a16z Crypto to bring a "WhatsApp moment" in the currency field.

In this article, PANews summarizes the recent stablecoin development trends of major technology and financial companies, providing a panoramic view of the track and demonstrating the industry impact they bring.

Technology companies rush to stablecoin payments: Stripe, PayPal, Coinbase, etc.

Stripe

On May 7 and 8, Stripe announced the launch of the "Stablecoin Financial Account", which allows corporate users to hold account balances in stablecoins in 101 countries. In addition, they also released USDB through Bridge, a programmable stablecoin that developers can embed into their own applications and get rewards by building the USDB ecosystem.

Stripe completed the acquisition of the stablecoin infrastructure platform Bridge for $1.1 billion in February 2025, further promoting the use of stablecoins in global payments. Bridge supports payment processing of stablecoins such as USDC, and Visa recently launched a payment card supporting stablecoins through Bridge.

PayPal

On April 23, PayPal announced that starting in 2025, US users holding PYUSD in their PayPal or Venmo balances will receive a 3.7% yield. By offering a yield, they incentivize users to buy and hold stablecoins within their platform, while the use of PYUSD outside the platform can also bring more revenue to PayPal. The yield is just the first step, and there may be more measures to promote PYUSD trading volume and integration in the future.

Coinbase

On May 6, Coinbase launched the x402 payment standard, a stablecoin payment standard designed for Internet-native payments that aims to enable atomic transactions between APIs, applications, and AI agents.

Meta

On May 9, Fortune reported that Meta, three years after abandoning the Libra/Diem project, is in preliminary talks with several crypto companies about the application of stablecoins, exploring cross-border payments to creators through stablecoins to reduce costs. Since January this year, former Plaid executive Ginger Baker has served as Meta's vice president of products, leading the relevant advancement.

MoneyGram

On May 7, MoneyGram released “MoneyGram Ramps,” a stablecoin-enabled cash deposit and withdrawal channel covering more than 170 countries. MoneyGram has a global cash network and provides a new way for stablecoins to interoperate with daily consumption and spending.

Traditional payment giants fight back: Mastercard and Visa

On April 28, Mastercard announced that it would cooperate with Circle, OKX, Paxos and other exchanges and wallets to launch a wider range of stablecoin integration, allowing consumers to spend stablecoin balances through Mastercard cards. At the same time, merchants can also directly settle fiat card payments into USDC.

In addition, as mentioned above, on April 30, Visa announced a partnership with Stripe-backed Bridge to allow fintech developers to issue Visa cards pegged to stablecoins, allowing users to use stablecoin balances to pay at fiat currency sales points through the Visa network.

These products significantly lower the threshold for users to adopt stablecoins by integrating with existing payment systems. Users do not need to worry about whether merchants support stablecoin payments, they can just use the bound Visa or Mastercard card to complete the payment.

The two leading companies Circle and Tether consolidate their "moats", and Paxos launches a stablecoin alliance

Circle

On April 21, Circle announced that it would launch the Circle Payments Network in partnership with a number of global banks and stablecoin startups to improve international payments. Circle directly challenges SWIFT and traditional banking networks, attempting to replace their inefficient messaging services and payment processes. On April 1, Circle applied for listing. Circle submitted an application to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, marking further recognition of the legitimacy of stablecoin payments.

Tether

As the stablecoin market expands, on May 13, defillama data showed that the market value of stablecoins was US$242.821 billion. Among them, Tether's USDT market value exceeded US$150 billion for the first time, reaching US$150.663 billion, accounting for 62% of the market value. Although USDT continues to grow, other stablecoins are also expanding, causing USDT's market dominance to drop from 70% to 62% in the past year. In order to maintain growth, USDT has taken a bold approach to expand cross-chain capabilities, from implementing a multi-chain token USDT0 supported by LayerZero OFT to building a hub with Legacy Hub and Plasma as the core. Through these methods, they are solving past challenges. In addition, Tether plans to launch a new dollar-backed stablecoin in the United States later this year.

Ondo

On April 18, Ondo Finance announced that it would list its US dollar treasury bond token USDY on the Stellar blockchain. In May, Ondo launched a cross-chain bridge solution for USDY, enabling it to be seamlessly transferred between the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and the Solana ecosystem. This is the first such solution for tokenized RWA, greatly improving the interoperability and global accessibility of USDY.

On May 12, Ondo Finance announced that USDY was launched on the Latin American platform TruBit, supporting access by users from five countries including Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Colombia.

Paxos

Stablecoin issuer Paxos has partnered with Anchorage Digital, Bullish, Galaxy Digital, Kraken, Nuvei and Robinhood to launch the Global Dollar Network, an open network designed to accelerate the use of global stablecoins. On April 14 this year, Visa announced that it would join the Global Dollar Network stablecoin alliance initiated by Paxos.

On May 12, the stablecoin alliance Global Dollar Network announced the addition of 19 new members, including cryptocurrency exchange BitMart, cryptocurrency custodian Zodia Custody, wallet provider Arculus, and stablecoin payment companies Beam, FOMO Pay, AlfredPay and Noah.

World Liberty Financial

World Liberty Financial Inc. (WLFI) is the developer of a DeFi protocol and governance platform inspired by U.S. President Donald Trump. On March 25, the company announced plans to launch a stablecoin, USD1, which is redeemable at a 1:1 ratio with the U.S. dollar (USD). The statement shows that WLFI's USD1 will be 100% guaranteed by U.S. short-term Treasury bonds, U.S. dollar deposits, and other cash equivalents. Initially, USD1 tokens will be minted on the Ethereum (ETH) and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) blockchains, with plans to expand to other protocols in the future. Each token is anchored to a value of $1.

Ethena

On December 16, 2024, the DeFi project Ethena Labs announced the official launch of its new stablecoin USDtb. As a blockchain-based US dollar stablecoin, 90% of USDtb's reserve funds are invested in BlackRock's tokenized fund BUIDL, and it cooperates with Securitize, a leading real-world asset tokenization company.

As of May 13, defillama data showed that Ethena's synthetic dollar USDe is the third largest dollar-pegged asset in the crypto market, with an issuance scale second only to USDT and USDC, and a market value of US$4.745 billion. On April 12, Ethena Labs launched the USDe reserve certificate, which will be updated weekly. As of the snapshot on April 26, the supply of USDe tokens was 4.765 billion, Ethena's minting/redemption contracts had US$44.695 million available to meet redemption needs, US$60.95 million in the reserve fund, and Copper's custody assets were approximately US$663 million.

On April 17, Ethena and asset tokenization platform Securitize said they plan to launch the real-world asset (RWA)-focused blockchain Converge in the second quarter of this year. The mainnet will be built on Arbitrum and Celestia, supporting USDe and USDtb tokens to pay for gas fees, and maintaining security by staking ENA.

On May 1, Ethena Labs announced a partnership with the TON blockchain to integrate its USDe product into Telegram, covering its one billion users. The partnership includes integration with non-custodial TON wallets, Telegram custodial wallets, and TON DeFi applications.

On May 5, Ethena Labs also announced that USDe is now live on Hyperliquid and HyperEVM.

Traditional banks enter the market to issue stablecoins: Bank of America, Standard Chartered Bank

Bank of America

On May 3, Bank of America said it was willing to issue its own stablecoin if Congress passed relevant legislation. Bank of America is the second largest lender in the United States, and its CEO Brian Moynihan has previously stated: "As long as legislation allows, we will enter the stablecoin business."

Standard Chartered

On February 17, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), Animoca Brands and HKT announced that they had reached an agreement to establish a joint venture (JV) and planned to apply for a license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) to issue a Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin.

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