In brief
- The stablecoin supply jumped $100 billion to a total of $314 billion in 2025.
- Tether leads in transaction activity, followed by Ripple’s RLUSD and Circle’s USDC.
- The Trump-backed USD1 reached the top 5 just months after April launch.
This was a defining year for stablecoins, with the signing of the GENIUS Act, a high-flying IPO for Circle, and a handful of tokens outpacing the rest.
Since the start of January, the overall U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin supply has increased by more than $100 billion, to $314 billion total. But that doesn’t mean all boats have risen at the same rate.
To measure stablecoin performance, Decrypt calculated velocity using historical data from crypto price aggregator CoinGecko from January through December 15. Velocity divides total volume by average supply, resulting in a calculation of how many times each coin has, on average, changed hands.
As former Commodities and Futures Trading Commission Chairman Timothy Massad explained to Decrypt, measuring velocity beats rankings that rely only on total supply.
“Stablecoins can be very useful without there being a large market cap,” he said. “In other words, it’s really the velocity, the transaction use, and they can circulate very quickly even if the amount outstanding is not that great.”
Tether (USDT)
Tether tops the list with a velocity of 166 because it’s long been a workhorse for global crypto trading. It can’t claim the crown as the first-ever stablecoin—that belongs to BitUSD. But it launched the same year, in 2014, and became the first widely used one.
Tether boasts a market capitalization of $186 billion after increasing 35% since the start of the year, according to CoinGecko data. The bulk of Tether tokens get traded on Ethereum (46.3%) and Tron (41.4%), according to DeFi Llama data.
Tether began the year by relocating to Bitcoin-friendly El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele declared BTC legal tender in 2021. There have been a few bumps, though. In March, Binance said it would delist USDT for European Union users to stay compliant with MiCA regulations, which require stablecoin issuers to be licensed.
But that’s not stopped the company from turning a hefty profit. So far in 2025, Tether has seen $10 billion in profit in the first three quarters of the year, the company said in October.
Ripple USD (RLUSD)
Ripple Labs’ stablecoin, RLUSD, swiped the second spot with a velocity of 71. That means, on average, every RLUSD token has changed hands 71 times since the start of the year.
In most stablecoin lineups, Circle’s USDC would hold this spot because its $78 billion market capitalization trumps that of RLUSD’s $1.3 billion. But as Massad pointed out, stablecoin performance has more to do with being able to move money efficiently than its total supply.
Ripple was provisionally approved for a national banking charter by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, in December. “This is a massive step forward—first for RLUSD— setting the highest standard for stablecoin compliance with both federal (OCC) & state (NYDFS) oversight,” Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse wrote on X.
Ripple Senior Vice President of Stablecoins Jack McDonald has often pointed out that RLUSD was specifically designed for institutional use.
At the start of December, Ripple got the green light from the Singapore Monetary Authority, or MAS, to expand XRP and RLUSD payments in Singapore. And earlier this year, RLUSD was integrated into Securitize’s tokenization platform. That means it’s one of the assets investors can swap for tokenized money market funds.
Circle (USDC)
USDC saw its velocity reach 56 in 2025, while its market capitalization climbed 78% to $78.4 billion by December 15.
Perhaps more than any of its competitors, Circle benefitted massively from the passage of the GENIUS Act. Its operating model already resembled the federally regulated framework that’s now become U.S. law. That’s given Circle a head start on compliance and investor confidence—and investors took note.
CRCL was so popular with investors on its debut that the NYSE halted trading three times. Since then, Circle has reported $740 million in Q3 revenue, marking a 66% year-over-year increase. Circle has also rolled out the testnet for Arc, its layer-1 blockchain, which counts BlackRock, Visa, and Amazon Web Services as early participants.
Circle was also one of several stablecoin issuers—including Ripple, Paxos and BitGo—which got a provisional approval for its national banking charter and will be looking to expand into broader financial services.
USD1 (USD1)
USD1 is an outlier because it launched in April, and therefore doesn’t have nearly a full year’s worth of data. But that didn’t stop it from landing right next to the podium with a velocity of 39.
Issued by World Liberty Financial—the crypto-focused firm co-founded by Donald Trump Jr. and partners—USD1 was designed from the outset to be a highly liquid transactional stablecoin. The token reached a $1 billion market cap in April, less than a month after its launch, according to data from CoinGecko.
There have been some very bullish predictions about its growth. Blockstreet’s Kyle Klemmer told Decrypt he believes USD1 will be the world’s dominant stablecoin, beating USDT and USDC, before President Donald Trump’s second term ends in 2029.
The project has leaned heavily on retail distribution and promotional partnerships, including integrations with several U.S.-based crypto exchanges, like Coinbase and FalconX, and it’s making a bid to become “Solana’s go-to stablecoin” by teaming up with meme coin platform Bonk and decentralized exchange Raydium.
PayPal USD (PYUSD)
PayPal USD’s velocity of 18 lands it in fifth place on this list.
Its 2023 debut made big waves because it was the first time an established payments platform made a bid at issuing a stablecoin—years before there was a regulatory framework in the U.S..
For most of this year, growth for PYUSD moved at a modest pace. Its market capitalization peaked above $1 billion in June and then established a foothold in September. Since then, it’s nearly tripled to $3.8 billion as of December 15.
PayPal has teamed with LayerZero to expand the token’s presence to nine new blockchains, including Tron, Abstract, Aptos, and Avalanche. But there’s also been some controversy.
In October, observers noted that PYUSD issuer Paxos minted and then immediately burned $300 trillion worth of tokens. It’s an impossibly large number of tokens, given it represents more than twice the world’s GDP.
“This was an internal technical error. There is no security breach,” the firm wrote on X. “Customer funds are safe. We have addressed the root cause.”
USDe (USDe)
Ethena Labs’ USDe demonstrated a velocity of 11 in 2025, with its market capitalization showing a modest gain of 11% from $5.8 billion in January to $6.5 billion by December 15.
But that trajectory leaves out the fact that its market cap soared to nearly $15 billion before the early October flash crash.
USDe is the only stablecoin on this list that isn’t backed by fiat currency: It’s backed by a delta-neutral strategy involving staked Ethereum and perpetual futures hedges. But its reliance on derivatives means that times of high volatility and shifts in sentiment can cause big swings in market capitalization.
Even with a less straightforward structure, the token’s advocates include billionaire Arthur Hayes. But not all regulators are convinced. Ethena Labs pulled out of the German market in April over growing scrutiny over its “serious deficiencies” in compliance.
USDS (USDS)
Sky’s USDS showed extremely low velocity of 1 in 2025—and that’s by design. To avoid confusion: Sky is a rebrand of DeFi OG MakerDAO and USDS is a rebrand of its DAI stablecoin.
Unlike USDT or USDC, which function as transactional stablecoins, most USDS tokens sit locked in Maker vaults or savings contracts as collateral for DeFi loans rather than circulating. Its role in DeFi is closer to a yield-bearing savings instrument than digital cash, so it naturally turns over far less often.
For example, the Sky Protocol currently offers a 4% rewards rate (paid in SKY tokens) to users who hold USDS. As of 2025, USDS has seen its market capitalization grow from $5.2 billion at the start of the year to $9.8 billion, marking an 85% increase in just under 12 months.
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