Huobi Growth Academy | Global Stablecoin Strategy Depth Research Report: From Dollar Hegemony to Financial Operating System

Abstract

Stablecoins have evolved from “crypto-native settlement chips” to “the infrastructure for global digital dollarization.” Over the past two years, the total market capitalization of global stablecoins has surged from about $120 billion to a range of $290–300 billion, setting a new historical record; on-chain cross-border settlements and fund transfers have become the strongest real-world use cases, while the demand for “currency substitution” in emerging markets provides a long-term structural tailwind. The United States has established a federal framework for stablecoins through the passage of the GENIUS Act, creating a triangular resonance of “rules-supply-demand” with the expansion of dollar-pegged stablecoins; major economies such as the EU, Hong Kong, and Japan have also proposed their own regulatory and industrialization pathways. Meanwhile, the structural concentration of “over-dollarization,” the interest rate constraints of reserve assets and operational incentives, as well as the potential “crowding out effect” of CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies), constitute the core of the policy and business game in the next stage.

1. Overview of the Stablecoin Sector

From the perspective of scale and structure, stablecoins are experiencing a triple inflection point of “volume-price-use”. Firstly, on the “volume” level: since the third quarter of 2025, multiple authoritative and industry media outlets have almost simultaneously observed a range of “close to/first breakthrough of 300 billion USD”, while the industry association AFME on the capital market side has set a more cautious anchor at 286 billion USD in its September report. This difference largely stems from varying statistical windows and inclusion criteria, but the direction of “returning to and refreshing historical highs” is undisputed. Furthermore, AFME pointed out that the share of dollar-denominated stablecoins reached 99.5%, pushing the structural certainty of “unipolar dollarization” to historical peaks. At the same time, FN London, under the Financial Times, has presented a dual oligopoly of USDT and USDC in terms of market share and liquidity, maintaining a combined share in the 70-80% range at different metrics/time points, reinforcing the anchoring power of dollar stablecoins on on-chain capital curves and pricing systems. Secondly, on the “use” level: cross-border settlement/remittance and B2B capital movement have become the strongest engines for real-world adoption. Morgan Stanley Investment Management disclosed that the cross-border stablecoin payment scale in Turkey alone will exceed 63 billion USD in 2024, with countries like India, Nigeria, and Indonesia entering the list of high-adoption nations. This kind of demand is not merely an “internal circulation” within the cryptocurrency realm but a systemic replacement for traditional cross-border financial friction and uncertainty. Furthermore, Visa's latest white paper extends the technical connotation of stablecoins from “payments” to “cross-border credit/on-chain credit infrastructure”, emphasizing that under the combination of programmable cash and smart contracts, global lending will witness automation, low friction, and high verifiability throughout the entire lifecycle of “matching-signing-performance-settlement”. This means that the marginal value of stablecoins will leap from “reducing cross-border payment costs” to “rewriting cross-border credit production functions”. Thirdly, on the “price” level (i.e., efficiency and financial conditions): Ethereum L2 (like Base) and high-performance public chains (like Solana) have established lower latency and lower cost “last-mile” clearing networks, complemented by compliant RWA and tokenized short-term treasury asset pools, making stablecoins not only “transferable dollars” but also “dollars that can be re-staked and can enter capital curves”, thereby reducing the radius of capital turnover and increasing turnover efficiency per unit time. These three inflection points collectively drive a paradigm shift from cyclical rebounds to structural penetration: “thicker” market value, “stronger” dollar anchor, “deeper” scenarios, and by achieving a higher degree of capital reuse, upgrade stablecoins from a “matching medium” to a “base for working capital and credit generation”. Along this curve, short-term public opinion or individual case events (such as a recent incident where certain stablecoins were mistakenly minted in excess during internal transfer and quickly rolled back) play more of a role in “risk management and audit visualization” pressure testing, without altering the main trend: a historical new high in total volume, dollar extremization in structural terms, and an extension of use from “payments” to “credit”.

In terms of driving force, the demand side and the supply side have formed a hyperbolic superposition of “real rigid demand × rule dividend”, which strengthens the above-mentioned triple increase. In the macro context of high inflation and high depreciation, the spontaneous adoption of the on-chain dollar as a “hard currency” and clearing medium is becoming more and more obvious, and the joint observation of Morgan Stanley and Chainalysis shows that bottom-up cross-border payment/remittance has become the most rapid penetration of stablecoins, and has typical countercyclical characteristics, that is, “the more volatile, the higher the volume”; On the demand side, the second constraint comes from the working capital efficiency of global enterprises: cross-border e-commerce, foreign trade, overseas platforms and developer economies all need T+0/minute certainty and low chargebacks, so stablecoins have become the “second track to replace SWIFT/correspondent bank networks”, and continue to reduce the cost of the “last mile” under the technical dividends of multi-chain parallel and L2 popularization. Cross-border settlement/remittance, B2B payment, and capital pool turnover have become the top scenarios for “real-world adoption”. On the supply side, the GENIUS Act was signed into effect on July 18, 2025, establishing a unified bottom line for stablecoin regulation at the federal level for the first time, requiring 100% disclosure of highly liquid reserves (US dollars or short-term US bonds, etc.) and monthly reserves, and clarifying the authority of redemption, custody, supervision and law enforcement, which is equivalent to writing “security-transparency-redeemability” into the strong constraints of regulations; Hong Kong's Stablecoin Ordinance, which will come into effect on 1 August 2025, establishes the licensing framework and activity boundaries, and the HKMA has issued supporting pages and detailed rules to ensure the quality of reserves, redemption mechanisms and risk control. The EU MiCA will enter the application period in batches from the end of 2024, and ESMA has successively issued second- and third-level regulatory technical standards and knowledge/competency guidelines, marking the inclusion of stablecoins in the “financial infrastructure-level” prudential regulatory system in Europe. The results of regulatory clarity are twofold: first, it significantly reduces the compliance uncertainty and cross-border compliance costs of issuers, clearing networks, and merchant acceptance ends, so that the friction of “real-world adoption” continues to decline; The second is to change the “risk-return-scale” function of the industry, and internalize the externalities of reserve security and information disclosure into compliance costs, thereby raising the threshold of the industry and accelerating the strong to become strong. Superimposing the technical curve of the public chain (L2 popularization/high TPS chain) and the RWA capital curve (short-term debt tokenization/money market fund on-chain), the stablecoin has completed the extension from the “cross-border payment entrance” to the “cross-border credit and on-chain capital market base”: Visa clearly stated in the latest white paper that stablecoins will become the basic layer of the “global credit ecology”, and the automation capabilities of smart contracts in pre-loan matching, loan monitoring, and post-loan clearing and disposal mean that the generation, circulation and pricing of credit will change from " manual and voucher" is the mainstay, and “code and data” is the mainstay; This also explains why, at a time when the aggregate is hitting a historical high and the structure is extremely dollarized, the industrial logic has switched from “cyclical rebound” to “structural penetration”. In this process, the U.S. federal anchor, Hong Kong licensing, and the EU MiCA landed all at once, forming a cross-continent institutional synergy, upgrading the global expansion of stablecoins from a “commercial phenomenon” to a systematic project of “policy and financial infrastructure coordination”, and providing a credible, auditable, and combinable underlying cash and liquidation layer for more complex trade finance modules such as cross-border credit, accounts receivable securitization, inventory financing, and factoring.

2. Trends and Analysis of US Dollar Stablecoins

In the global stablecoin landscape, the United States' dollar stablecoin is not just a market product, but a key pivot deeply embedded in national interests and geopolitical financial strategies. The underlying logic can be understood from three dimensions: maintaining dollar hegemony, alleviating fiscal pressures, and dominating global rule-making. First, the dollar stablecoin has become a new tool for maintaining the international status of the dollar. Traditional dollar hegemony relies on its status as a reserve currency, the SWIFT system, and the petrodollar mechanism, but over the past decade, the global trend of “de-dollarization”, although slow, has been gradually eroding the dollar's settlement share and reserve weight. In this context, the expansion of dollar stablecoins offers an asymmetric path, bypassing sovereign currency systems and capital controls, directly transmitting the “dollar value proposition” to end users. Whether in high inflation economies like Venezuela and Argentina, or in cross-border trade scenarios in Africa and Southeast Asia, stablecoins have essentially become the “on-chain dollar” actively chosen by residents and enterprises, penetrating local financial systems in a low-cost, low-friction manner. This penetration does not rely on military or geopolitical tools, but rather achieves “digital dollarization” through spontaneous market behavior, thereby expanding the coverage radius of the dollar ecosystem. As noted in JPMorgan's latest research, by 2027, the expansion of stablecoins could bring an additional $1.4 trillion in structural demand for the dollar, effectively offsetting some of the “de-dollarization” trend, which means that the U.S. has achieved a low-cost extension of monetary hegemony through stablecoins.

Secondly, USD stablecoins have become an important new buyer supporting the US Treasury market at the fiscal and financial level. Current global demand for US Treasuries remains strong, but the continuous expansion of the fiscal deficit and fluctuations in interest rates put long-term pressure on the US government in terms of financing. The issuance mechanism of stablecoins is inherently tied to the demand for high liquidity reserves, and under the explicit requirements of the GENIUS Act, these reserves must primarily consist of short-term US Treasuries or cash equivalents. This means that as the market value of stablecoins expands from hundreds of billions to potentially trillions in the future, the reserve assets behind them will become a stable and growing buying force in the Treasury market, acting similarly to a 'quasi-central bank buyer.' This can not only improve the maturity structure of US Treasuries but may also lower overall financing costs, providing a new 'structural fulcrum' for US finances. Several research institutions have modeled that by 2030, the potential scale of stablecoins is expected to reach 1.6 trillion USD, with incremental demand for US Treasuries reaching hundreds of billions. Lastly, the US has achieved a strategic shift in rule-making from 'suppression' to 'incorporation.' The early regulatory attitude was not friendly towards stablecoins, as lawmakers were concerned about their threat to monetary policy and financial stability. However, as the market size continued to expand, the US quickly realized that it could not stifle this trend through suppression, and instead adopted a model of 'entitlement - regulation - incorporation.' The GENIUS Act, as a landmark piece of legislation, came into effect in July 2025, establishing a unified regulatory framework at the federal level. This legislation not only imposes mandatory requirements on reserve quality, liquidity, and transparency but also clarifies the parallel legality of issuance channels for banks and non-banks, while incorporating AML/KYC, redemption mechanisms, and custodial responsibilities into compliance hard constraints, ensuring that the operation of stablecoins remains within controllable boundaries. More critically, this legislation gives the US a first-mover advantage in international standard-setting; through the demonstration effect of federal legislation, the US can export its stablecoin regulatory logic at future multilateral platforms such as the G20, IMF, and BIS, ensuring that USD stablecoins dominate the market and also become the 'default standard' institutionally.

In summary, the strategic logic of the United States regarding the issue of dollar stablecoins has achieved a threefold convergence: from an international monetary perspective, stablecoins are an extension of digital dollarization, maintaining and expanding dollar hegemony at a low cost; from a fiscal and financial perspective, stablecoins create new long-term buying power for the U.S. Treasury market, alleviating fiscal pressure; from a regulatory institutional perspective, the U.S. has completed the recognition and incorporation of stablecoins through the GENIUS Act, ensuring that it has a dominant voice in the future global digital financial order. These three strategic pillars not only complement each other but also resonate in practice: when the market value of dollar stablecoins expands to trillions of dollars, it will both reinforce the international monetary status of the dollar and support the sustainability of domestic fiscal financing, while also establishing global standards in legal and regulatory terms. This combined effect of “institutional priority” and “network first-mover advantage” means that dollar stablecoins are not only market products but also important extensions of U.S. national interests. In the future global competition landscape for stablecoins, this moat will persist, while non-dollar stablecoins may have some development space in regional markets, but it will be difficult to challenge the core position of dollar stablecoins in the short term. In other words, the future of stablecoins is not only a market choice in digital finance but also a monetary strategy in great power rivalry, and the United States has clearly occupied the high ground in this contest.

3. Trends and Analysis of Non-US Dollar Stablecoins

The overall landscape of non-dollar stablecoins is showing a typical “globally weak, locally strong” characteristic. Looking back to 2018, its market share once approached 49%, almost forming a balance with dollar stablecoins. However, in just a few years, this share has fallen to less than 1%, with “zero point something”. The industry data platform RWA.xyz even estimated an extreme low of 0.18%. The Euro stablecoin has become the only one that is visible in absolute scale, with a total market value of about $456 million, occupying the vast majority of the non-dollar stablecoin space, while stablecoins from other currencies such as those in Asia and Australia are still in the starting or pilot stage. Meanwhile, the European Capital Markets Industry Association (AFME) pointed out in its September report that the share of dollar stablecoins has reached as high as 99.5%, meaning that global on-chain liquidity is almost entirely tied to the dollar as a single point. This excessive concentration poses structural risks; if extreme regulation, technical, or credit shocks occur domestically in the U.S., the spillover effects will quickly transmit to global markets through the settlement layer. Therefore, promoting non-dollar stablecoins is not merely a matter of commercial competition, but a strategic necessity for maintaining system resilience and monetary sovereignty.

In the non-dollar camp, the Eurozone is at the forefront. The implementation of the European Union's MiCA Act provides unprecedented legal certainty for stablecoin issuance and circulation, and Circle announced that its USDC/EURC product is fully compliant with MiCA requirements and actively promotes a multi-chain deployment strategy. As a result, the euro stablecoin market capitalization has achieved triple-digit growth in 2025, with EURC alone rising 155% to $298 million, up from $117 million at the beginning of the year. Although the absolute size is still much smaller than that of USD stablecoins, the growth momentum is clearly visible. The European Parliament, ESMA, and ECB are intensively introducing technical standards and regulatory rules, which pose strict requirements for issuance, redemption, and reserves, and gradually build a compliant cold-start ecosystem. Australia's path is different from that of the eurozone, with a more traditional bank-led top-down experiment. Among the four major banks, ANZ and NAB have launched A$DC and AUDN respectively, while in the retail market, AUDD, a licensed payment company, has filled the gap, focusing on cross-border payments and efficiency optimization. However, the overall development is still in the pilot stage of small-scale institutions and scenarios, and has failed to form large-scale retail applications. The biggest uncertainty lies in the fact that a unified national legal framework has not yet been introduced, while the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is actively working on a digital Australian dollar (CBDC) that, once officially launched, could replace or even squeeze existing private stablecoins. In the future, if the regulatory floodgates are opened, relying on the dual advantages of bank endorsement and retail payment scenarios, the Australian dollar stablecoin has the potential to replicate quickly, but its alternative or complementary relationship with CBDC is still an unsolved problem. The South Korean market presents a paradox: despite the country's overall high acceptance of cryptoassets, the development of stablecoins has almost come to a standstill. The key is that the legislation is seriously lagging behind, and it is not expected to take effect until 2027 at the earliest, leading the chaebols and large Internet platforms to choose to wait and see. In addition, the regulator's tendency to promote “controllable private chains”, as well as the scarcity and low yield of the domestic short-term treasury bond market, make issuers face double constraints in terms of profit models and commercial incentives. Hong Kong is one of the few cases where “laws and regulations are ahead of the curve”. In May 2025, Hong Kong's Legislative Council passed the Stablecoin Ordinance, which came into effect on August 1, becoming the first major financial center in the world to introduce a comprehensive regulatory framework for stablecoins. Subsequently, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) issued implementation rules clarifying the compliance boundary between Hong Kong dollar anchoring and onshore issuance. However, while the system took precedence, there was a “partial cooling” in the market. Under the cautious attitude of mainland regulators, some Chinese institutions have chosen to keep a low profile or suspend their applications, resulting in a decline in market heat. It is expected that by the end of 2025 or early 2026, the regulatory authorities will issue a very small number of the first batch of licenses, and the rolling pilot will be carried out in a “prudent tempo - gradual liberalization” manner. This means that although Hong Kong has the advantage of being an international financial hub and leading laws and regulations, the pace of its development is constrained by the mainland's cross-border capital control and risk isolation considerations, and the breadth and speed of market expansion are still uncertain. Japan, on the other hand, has embarked on a unique path in institutional design and has become an innovative model of “trust-based strong supervision”. Through the Amendment to the Fund Settlement Act, Japan has established a regulatory model of “trust custody + licensed financial institution leading” to ensure that stablecoins operate within a compliance framework. In the fall of 2025, JPYC was approved as the first compliant yen stablecoin, issued by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust's Progmat Coin platform, and plans to issue a cumulative 1 trillion yen over three years. Reserve assets are anchored to Bank of Japan Deposits and Treasury Bonds (JGBs), aiming to connect cross-border remittances, corporate settlements, and DeFi ecosystems.

Overall, the development status of non-USD stablecoins can be summarized as “overall predicament, partial differentiation.” On a global scale, the extreme concentration of USD stablecoins has compressed the space for other currencies, leading to a significant shrinkage in the market share of non-USD stablecoins. However, in the regional dimension, the Euro and Yen represent a long-term path of “sovereignty and regulatory certainty,” which is expected to form differentiated competitiveness in cross-border payments and trade finance; Hong Kong maintains a unique position with its advantages as a financial hub and institutional pioneer; Australia and South Korea are still in the exploration and observation stage, and their ability to break through quickly depends on the legal framework and CBDC positioning. In the future stablecoin system, non-USD stablecoins may not be able to challenge the dominance of the USD, but their existence itself has strategic significance: they can serve as a buffer and backup plan for systemic risks, and also help countries maintain monetary sovereignty in the digital age.

4. Investment Prospects and Risks

The investment logic of stablecoins is undergoing a profound paradigm shift, transitioning from the past “coin-centric” thinking that focused on token prices and market share to a “cash flow and rules-centric” framework based on cash flow, systems, and regulations. This shift is not only an upgrade in investment perspective but also a necessary requirement for the entire industry to move from a crypto-native stage to financial infrastructure. From the perspective of industry chain stratification, the most direct beneficiaries are undoubtedly on the issuance side. Stablecoin issuers, custodians, auditing firms, and reserve managers have gained clear compliance pathways and institutional safeguards with the implementation of the “GENIUS Act” in the United States, as well as the EU's MiCA and Hong Kong's “Stablecoin Regulations.” Although mandatory reserves and monthly information disclosure requirements have increased operational costs, they have also raised the industry entry threshold, accelerating the concentration of the industry and strengthening the scale advantages of leading issuers. This means that leading institutions can rely on interest income, the allocation of reserve assets, and compliance dividends to achieve stable cash flow, forming a pattern of “the strong get stronger.”

Apart from the issuer, settlement and merchant acceptance networks will be the next important investment direction. Whoever can first integrate stablecoins on a large scale into corporate ERP systems and cross-border payment networks will be able to build sustainable cash flows in payment commissions, settlement fees, and working capital management financial services. The potential of stablecoins goes beyond on-chain exchanges; it lies in whether they can become “everyday currency tools” in the business operation process. Once this embedding is realized, it will release long-term, predictable cash flows, similar to the moats established by payment network companies. Another area worth noting is RWA (Real-World Assets) and short-term bond tokenization. As the scale of stablecoins expands, the allocation of reserve funds will inevitably need to seek returns. The tokenization of short-term government bonds and money market funds not only meets reserve compliance requirements but also builds an efficient bridge between stablecoins and traditional financial markets. Ultimately, a closed-loop is expected to form between stablecoins, short-term bond tokens, and the capital market, making the entire on-chain dollar liquidity curve more mature. Furthermore, compliance technology and on-chain identity management are also worthy areas for layout. The U.S. “GENIUS Act”, the EU MiCA, and Hong Kong regulations collectively emphasize the importance of KYC, AML, and blacklist management, which means that “regulatable open public chains” have become an industry consensus. Technology companies providing on-chain identity and compliance modules will play an important role in the future stablecoin ecosystem. From a regional comparison, the U.S. is undoubtedly the market with the largest scale dividend. The first-mover advantage of the dollar and the clarity of federal legislation mean that banks, payment giants, and even tech companies may deeply engage in the stablecoin track. Investment targets include not only issuers but also builders of financial infrastructure. The opportunity in the EU lies in institutional-level B2B settlement and the euro-denominated DeFi ecosystem. The MiCA compliance framework and expectations for a digital euro jointly shape a market space centered on “stability + compliance”. Hong Kong, with its institutional advantages and international resources, is expected to become a bridgehead for offshore RMB, HKD, and cross-border asset allocation, especially against the backdrop of low-key advancement by Chinese institutions, where foreign and local financial institutions may gain faster access. Japan, on the other hand, has created a highly secure model through a “trust-type strong regulation” approach. If JPYC and its subsequent products can reach a trillion yen issuance scale, it may change the supply and demand structure of certain maturities of JGBs. Australia and South Korea are still in the exploratory stage, with investment opportunities more reflected in small-scale pilots and the window period after the release of policy dividends. In terms of valuation and pricing frameworks, the issuer's revenue model can be simplified to reserve asset interest income multiplied by AUM, then adjusted according to profit-sharing ratios and incentive costs. Scale, interest spread, redemption rate, and compliance costs are key factors determining profitability. Revenue from the settlement and acceptance networks mainly comes from payment commissions, settlement fees, and financial value-added, with core variables being merchant density, ERP integration depth, and compliance loss rates. Revenue from the on-chain capital market is directly related to net interest margin, programmable credit stock, and risk-adjusted capital returns, with the key being the stability of asset sources and the efficiency of default resolution.

However, the risks in the stablecoin sector cannot be ignored. The core risk lies in systemic concentration. Currently, the share of US dollar stablecoins is as high as 99.5%, and global on-chain liquidity is almost entirely reliant on a single point of the dollar. If there is a significant legislative reversal, regulatory tightening, or technical incident within the United States, it could trigger a global deleveraging chain reaction. The risk of regulatory repricing also exists; even with the introduction of the GENIUS Act, its implementation details and inter-agency coordination may still change the cost curve and boundaries for non-bank issuers. The strong constraints of the EU's MiCA may force some overseas issuers to “Brexit” or switch to a restricted model; the high compliance costs, strict custody, and replenishment terms in Hong Kong and Japan have raised the bar for capital and technology. The potential “crowding out effect” of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) should not be overlooked. Once the digital euro and digital Australian dollar are put into use, they may create institutional biases in scenarios such as public services, taxation, and welfare distribution, thereby compressing the space for private stablecoins in local currency pricing scenarios. Operational risk is also prominent; recently, some issuers experienced incidents of over-minting. Although they can be quickly rolled back, it highlights the need for real-time audits of the rigor in reserve reconciliation and minting-destroying mechanisms. Interest rate and maturity mismatch is another potential risk; if issuers chase returns and mismatch assets with redemption obligations, it could lead to runs and market turmoil. Lastly, the risks of geopolitical issues and compliance with sanctions are also increasing. As a derivative of the dollar, stablecoins will face higher compliance pressures and blacklist management challenges in certain scenarios. Overall, while the future prospects for stablecoin investment are immense, it is no longer just a story of “merely betting on scale” but rather a composite game of cash flow, rules, and institutional certainty. Investors need to focus on which entities can establish stable cash flow models within a compliance framework, which regions can unleash structural opportunities amid regulatory evolution, and which sectors can generate long-term value through the extension of compliance technology and on-chain credit. At the same time, they must remain highly vigilant about the potential shocks from systemic concentration and regulatory repricing, especially against the backdrop of the dollar's dominance and the accelerated advancement of various countries' CBDCs.

5. Conclusion

The evolution of stablecoins has entered a qualitative turning point, no longer just a story of “how much the market value can rise,” but a leap from dollar tokens to a global financial operating system. Initially, it serves as an asset, supporting the basic functions of neutral market conditions and on-chain transactions; subsequently, through network effects, it enters the realm of small and high-frequency settlements in global B2B and B2C; ultimately, under the dual support of rules and code, it evolves into a programmable cash layer capable of supporting complex financial services such as credit, collateral, bills, and inventory financing. Under the combined efforts of currency, finance, and rules, the U.S. has shaped the dollar stablecoin into a tool for the institutional output of dollarization: it not only expands the global penetration of the dollar but also stabilizes the demand for U.S. Treasury bonds while locking in international discourse power. Although non-dollar stablecoins are inherently disadvantaged in terms of network effects and interest differentials, their existence supports regional financial sovereignty and system resilience, with regions like the EU, Japan, and Hong Kong constructing their survival spaces through regulatory preemption or institutional design. For investors, the key is to complete the framework shift: from imagining coin prices and market share to validating business models based on cash flow, rules, and regulatory technology. In the next two to three years, stablecoins will complete regulatory compliance model implementations across multiple jurisdictions, evolving from “over-the-counter channel assets” into the “foundation of a global financial operating system,” profoundly changing the monetary transmission paths and production methods of financial services.