Stablecoin Summer 2025: The Crypto Calm Before the Storm?

Forget memecoins—this season belongs to the steady hands. Stablecoins are having their moment as traders seek shelter from crypto''s notorious volatility.

Why now? With regulators circling like vultures and DeFi yields drying up, dollar-pegged tokens offer a rare combo: liquidity without the heartburn. Even Wall Street''s flirting with them—between meetings about killing Bitcoin, of course.

The dark horse? Cross-border payments. While banks charge 3 days and 5% for international transfers, stablecoins cut settlement to seconds for pennies. Remittance corridors from Manila to Mexico City are quietly being rewritten.

But watch the shadows. That 1:1 peg isn''t magic—it''s promises backed by the same ''trust us'' math that tanked Terra/Luna. When the music stops, someone''s left holding algorithmic confetti.

Bottom line: In a market that worships volatility, the boring coins might be 2025''s smartest gamble. Just don''t call it ''stable'' when Tether''s auditors mysteriously vanish again.

Okay, stablecoin supply is growing, but how are they being used?

B2B use cases drive the largest share of stablecoin usage today.

B2B cross-border payments tracked at nearly $3 billion in February 2025 alone, compared to $1.1 billion for card-based spending, $1.5 billion in peer-to-peer payments, or $275 million in B2C payments across the same time period.

18% of small and medium US businesses “[that] are aware of cryptocurrency” use stablecoins for their business needs in 2025 — up from 8% in 2024, according to Coinbase’s State of crypto 2025 report.

The chains facilitating the most stablecoin transfers? Ethereum, Base and Tron. 

In May, ethereum saw $1.2 trillion in volumes (29%), while Base had $1 trillion (26%) and Tron $687 billion (17%). Total stablecoin volumes in May came up to $4 trillion.

Should the GENIUS Act come to pass, which players stand to gain the most?

If the GENIUS Act requires stablecoins to be backed by US dollars or Treasury bills, the answer is probably: TradFi regulated issuers such as Circle, traditional Fintech companies like PayPal, and banks and money market funds, Blockworks Research analyst Luke Leasure told me.

Decentralized stablecoins like Ethena’s USDe or Sky’s (previously Maker) USDS are not entirely backed by cash equivalents, so WOULD not be compliant with GENIUS (unless registered in the US).

Yet, there are still downstream positive effects for DeFi from a burst in stablecoin growth.

In particular, money markets like Aave and PENDLE stand to gain.

On AAVE v3 alone (across all chains), stablecoins make up about $10.2 billion in TVL.

What about Pendle?

Though Pendle is technically a “yield trading” app, it has cemented itself as a de facto go-to-market platform for all yield-bearing assets, particularly stablecoins.

High risk appetite users onchain don’t just want to stake and earn an underlying T-bill yield, they want to speculate on points.

A snapshot of Pendle’s $5.3 billion in TVL today demonstrates the business’s effectiveness in capturing the downstream growth of new yield-bearing stablecoin launches. About ~61% of it comprises Ethena’s USDe and eUSDe (a restaking token), Sky’s USDS and OpenEden’s USDO.

A recent report from Spartan Group and Modular Capital found that Pendle has captured approximately 30% of the whole $11 billion yield-bearing stablecoin market — about 1.3% of total stablecoin supply.

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