The stablecoin market has grown to about $300 billion, with Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) strengthening their dominance. USDT leads with a market cap of around $186 billion, and USDC follows with about $70 billion, while other stablecoins remain much smaller. The competition is shifting from token issuance to securing broad adoption and deep liquidity, which creates a reinforcing network effect. Despite new entrants from banks and fintechs, USDT and USDC's extensive integration and liquidity make them difficult to unseat in the near term, though future challengers could emerge if they achieve similar scale and usage.
Tether's USDT is now available as a confidential token (cUSDT) on Zama, which uses fully homomorphic encryption to hide transaction amounts and balances on Ethereum. Since its launch in January 2026, cUSDT has reached a cumulative shielded volume of ...
David Schwartz, Ripple's CTO Emeritus, acknowledged a fundamental mistake in early blockchain design: assuming all USD stablecoins would share the same currency code 'USD'. This miscalculation led to fragmented stablecoin payments, confusing users wi...
Stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether are key beneficiaries of the rapid growth in neobanks across emerging markets, where stablecoins like USDC and USDT enable cheaper, faster payments. While neobanks struggle with profitability due to high customer ...
This week in crypto, Pump.fun introduced a new trading model pairing memecoins with tokenized stocks on Solana, expanding crypto's reach. Hunter Biden's LAPTOP memecoin crashed 98% shortly after launch, highlighting market volatility. The Liquid netw...
The US Department of Justice publicly thanked Tether for its role in disrupting Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language crypto marketplace accused of supporting fraud and money laundering. Authorities restrained over $52 million in digital assets linked ...
