From Tether to Trump's USD1: the 7 most popular stablecoins of 2025

Source: PortaldoBitcoin Original Title: From Tether to Trump’s USD1: the 7 Most Popular Stablecoins of 2025 Original Link: This has been a pivotal year for stablecoins, with the creation of the GENIUS Act, legislation regulating this asset class in the US, a highly successful IPO by Circle, and a handful of tokens surpassing the rest.

Since the beginning of January, the total supply of dollar-denominated stablecoins has increased by over US$ 100 billion, reaching a total of US$ 314 billion. But this doesn’t mean all have grown at the same pace.

To measure stablecoin performance, we calculated velocity using historical data from the crypto price aggregator CoinGecko, from January through December 15. Velocity divides the total volume by the average supply, resulting in a calculation of how many times each coin, on average, changed hands.

As former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Timothy Massad explained to Decrypt, measuring velocity is more effective than rankings based solely on total supply.

“Stablecoins can be very useful without having a large market value,” he said. “In other words, what really matters is velocity, transaction use, and they can circulate very quickly even if the circulating amount isn’t so large.”

Tether (USDT)

Tether leads the list with a velocity of 166, as it has long been a pillar of global cryptocurrency trading. It cannot claim to be the first stablecoin in history — that belongs to BitUSD. But it was launched in the same year, 2014, and became the first to be widely used.

Tether boasts a market capitalization of US$ 186 billion after growing 35% since the start of the year, according to CoinGecko data. Most USDT tokens are traded on Ethereum (46.3%) and Tron (41.4%) networks, according to DeFi Llama data.

Tether began the year by relocating its headquarters to El Salvador, a Bitcoin-friendly country where President Nayib Bukele declared BTC legal tender in 2021. There were some setbacks, however. In March, a major exchange announced it would delist USDT for EU users to comply with MiCA rules, which require stablecoin issuers to be licensed.

Nonetheless, this did not prevent the company from posting robust profits. So far in 2025, Tether has accumulated US$ 10 billion in profit in the first three quarters of the year, the company reported in October.

Ripple USD (RLUSD)

Ripple Labs’ stablecoin, RLUSD, ranked second, with a velocity of 71. This means that, on average, each RLUSD token changed hands 71 times since the beginning of the year.

Most stablecoin rankings would place Circle’s USDC in this spot, as its market cap of US$ 78 billion exceeds RLUSD’s US$ 1.3 billion. But as Massad pointed out, a stablecoin’s performance is more about its ability to move money efficiently than total supply.

In December, Ripple received provisional approval for a national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). “This is a huge step — first for RLUSD — establishing the highest compliance standards for stablecoins, with federal (OCC) and state (NYDFS) oversight,” Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse wrote.

Ripple’s senior vice president of stablecoins, Jack McDonald, often emphasizes that RLUSD was specifically designed for institutional use.

In early December, Ripple received the green light from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to expand XRP and RLUSD payments within the country. And earlier this year, RLUSD was integrated into Securitize’s tokenization platform, becoming one of the assets investors can exchange for tokenized money market funds.

Circle (USDC)

USDC reached a velocity of 56 in 2025, while its market cap increased by 78%, reaching US$ 78.4 billion by December 15.

Perhaps more than any competitor, Circle benefited greatly from the approval of the GENIUS Act. Its operational model already resembled the federal regulatory framework that has now become law in the United States. This gave Circle an initial advantage in compliance and investor confidence — and the market took notice.

The CRCL token was so sought after by investors on its debut that the NYSE suspended trading three times. Since then, Circle reported US$ 740 million in revenue in the third quarter, a 66% increase from the previous year. The company also launched the Arc testnet, its layer-one blockchain, which includes BlackRock, Visa, and Amazon Web Services as initial participants.

Circle was also one of several stablecoin issuers — including Ripple, Paxos, and BitGo — that received provisional approval for a national bank charter and are now seeking to expand into broader financial services.

USD1 (USD1)

USD1 is an outlier, as it was launched in April and thus has no data for a full year. Still, it managed to just miss the podium, with a velocity of 39.

Issued by World Liberty Financial — a crypto-focused company co-founded by Donald Trump Jr. and partners — USD1 was conceived from the start as a highly liquid transactional stablecoin. The token reached a market cap of US$ 1 billion in April, less than a month after launch, according to CoinGecko data.

There are quite optimistic forecasts for its growth. Kyle Klemmer of Blockstreet said he believes USD1 will become the world’s dominant stablecoin, surpassing USDT and USDC, before the end of Donald Trump’s second term in 2029.

The project has heavily bet on retail distribution and promotional partnerships, including integrations with several US crypto exchanges, a regulatory compliance platform, and FalconX. It also aims to become the “Solana’s preferred stablecoin” by partnering with memecoin platform BONK and the decentralized exchange Raydium.

PayPal USD (PYUSD)

PayPal USD’s velocity of 18 secures its fifth place on the list.

Its launch in 2023 caused a stir as it marked the first time an established payments platform attempted to issue a stablecoin — years before a regulatory framework existed in the US.

For most of the year, PYUSD’s growth was modest. Its market cap surpassed US$ 1 billion in June and stabilized in September. Since then, it nearly tripled, reaching US$ 3.8 billion as of December 15.

PayPal partnered with LayerZero to expand the token’s presence to nine new blockchains, including Tron, Abstract, Aptos, and Avalanche. But there were also controversies.

In October, observers noted that Paxos, the issuer of PYUSD, minted and then immediately burned US$ 300 trillion worth of tokens — an impossible figure, as it exceeds twice the global GDP.

“This was an internal technical error. There was no security breach,” the company wrote. “Customer funds are safe. We have addressed the root cause.”

USDe (USDe)

USDe, from Ethena Labs, had a velocity of 11 in 2025, with its market cap showing a modest gain of 11%, from US$ 5.8 billion in January to US$ 6.5 billion in December 15.

However, this trajectory overlooks the fact that the token’s market value reached nearly US$ 15 billion before the flash crash in early October.

USDe is the only stablecoin on this list not backed by fiat currency. It is supported by a delta-neutral strategy involving staked Ethereum and hedging with perpetual futures contracts. But reliance on derivatives makes periods of high volatility and sentiment shifts cause large swings in market cap.

Despite a less conventional structure, the token has strong advocates, such as billionaire Arthur Hayes. Not all regulators are convinced, however. In April, Ethena Labs exited the German market amid increased scrutiny over “serious deficiencies” in regulatory compliance.

USDS (USDS)

USDS, from Sky, had an extremely low velocity of 1 in 2025 — and this is intentional. To clarify: Sky is a rebranding of veteran DeFi MakerDAO, and USDS is a rebranding of its stablecoin DAI.

Unlike USDT or USDC, which function as transactional stablecoins, most USDS tokens are locked in Maker’s vaults or savings contracts as collateral for DeFi loans, rather than circulating freely. Its role in DeFi is more akin to a yield-bearing savings instrument than digital cash, which naturally results in lower turnover.

For example, Sky Protocol currently offers a reward rate of 4% (paid in SKY tokens) to users holding USDS. In 2025, USDS’s market cap grew from US$ 5.2 billion at the start of the year to US$ 9.8 billion, an 85% increase in just under 12 months.