Stablecoin Supremacy: How USDT and USDC Dominated the $239 Billion Boom

Forget ’slow and steady’—the stablecoin race just hit ludicrous speed. Tether and Circle’s cash-pegged tokens now command a $239 billion market, proving dollar-digitized beats dollar-denominated for the crypto crowd.

Why the surge? Traders aren’t hedging—they’re bypassing banks entirely. When every stablecoin transaction is another papercut to legacy finance, who needs a checking account?

Just don’t ask regulators if they’re ’stable’ in the traditional sense. Some things—like fractional reserves and 3am Twitter meltdowns—never change.

Some numbers

According to the Artemis study, the total supply of stablecoins is $239 billion. All the stablecoins are held across 150 million wallet addresses.

The researchers emphasized that stablecoins are increasingly used in everyday economic activity by millions of users. The report estimates that from January 2023 to February 2025, $94.2 billion in non-trading stablecoin payments were settled. Between November 2023 and December 2024, the monthly stablecoin payment volume doubled from about $3 billion to $6 billion.

Leading countries, platforms, and currencies

Survey data revealed that the U.S. and Singapore lead in stablecoin transaction volume, each accounting for 18% of global usage. Hong Kong and Japan follow with shares of nearly 10% and 8%, respectively. The UK (6.8%) and Germany (4.5%) rank fifth and sixth, while other countries each account for less than 3%.

Tron and ethereum dominate as the top blockchains for stablecoin activity, with a combined market share exceeding 90%. USDT is the most widely used stablecoin, accounting for over 70% of stablecoin-related transactions between 2023 and 2025. USDC trails behind, surpassing 30% market share only once, in March 2024. However, in countries such as India and Argentina, USDC is as widely used as USDT, and it sees strong adoption in the U.S., Mexico, Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya.

According to the study, 99% of stablecoins are pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed by U.S. dollar-denominated instruments. “If they were considered a nation, stablecoins WOULD be the 14th largest holder of sovereign U.S. debt,” the report states. It also quotes U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who underscored the importance of stablecoins in reinforcing the dollar’s global reserve currency status.

INTEL: "And we are going to put a lot of thought in the stablecoin regime and as President TRUMP directed we are going to we are going to keep the US the dominant reserve currency in the world and we will use stablecoins to do that."- Bessent pic.twitter.com/XaJxROTOhw

Types of transactions

While peer-to-peer payments were the dominant use case for stablecoins, business-to-business (B2B) transactions overtook them in mid-2024. Since July 2024, the volume of B2B transactions has continued to grow, while P2P volume has gradually declined.

The share of card-based stablecoin transactions also began rising significantly at the end of 2023. In February 2025, B2B payments accounted for $3 billion, P2P transactions reached $1.5 billion, and card payments hit $1.1 billion, matching the level of P2P activity seen in February 2023, when P2P was the leading transaction type.

Notably, P2P activity has remained relatively flat between 2023 and 2025, fluctuating between $1.4 billion and $2.2 billion. Meanwhile, B2B, card payments, and business-to-client and prefunding transactions have been on the rise.

Conclusion

In their conclusion, the researchers note that stablecoins have evolved from a niche payment tool into a “meaningful tool for global payments,” with B2B transactions now leading the way.