Stablecoin Market Hits Record $310 Billion, Driven by Non-Yielding Coins

The overall stablecoin market reached a new all-time high of $310.117 billion on Saturday, December 13th, demonstrating massive growth of 52.1% over the past year (up from $203.728 billion).

Market Leaders and Recent Growth

• The current market capitalization is approximately $309.911 billion.
• Tether (USDT) remains dominant with a market cap of $186.242 billion (60.10% dominance).
• Circle (USDC) is second at $78.315 billion (around 25% dominance).
• In the last seven days, both leaders saw circulation increases:
  • USDT rose by 0.32% (adding $593.34 million) across networks like Tron, Solana, and Polygon.
  • USDC jumped by 0.71% (adding $555.56 million) across Ethereum, Solana, and Base.
• Other coins like Sky’s USDS and PayPal’s PYUSD also minted new coins, with Tron’s USDD and crvUSD seeing significant percentage gains (23.46% and 28.92%, respectively).

Contrasting Trends: Payment vs. Yield-Bearing Stablecoins

The market’s growth is primarily fueled by payment-focused, non-yield-bearing stablecoins.

• Yield-Bearing Decline:The yield-bearing stablecoin sector has experienced a decline, dropping 1.9% in the last 30 days, partly due to the October crypto crash and events like Ethena’s USDe losing its peg.
  • Ethena’s USDe dropped by 2.98% this week, and USDtb fell by a sharper 18.99%.
  • In the past week, alUSD tanked 80.5%, and smsUSD dropped 68.1%.
  • The total market cap for the yield-bearing sector is currently around $19.86 billion.
• BlackRock’s BUIDL also saw a drop of 13.24%, stabilizing its market cap at $1.321 billion.

PayPal’s PYUSD Adoption

PayPal is actively driving adoption for its stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), which has risen 13.33% in the last 30 days to a market cap of $3.863 billion.

• YouTube Payouts: YouTube is now allowing U.S.-based content creators to receive their payouts in PYUSD, a feature confirmed by PayPal and Google spokespersons.
• This move leverages PayPal’s fintech status, building on prior experiments with Google and options allowing recipients to receive payments in PYUSD.