U.S. State Government Stablecoin Public Chain Choices: Aptos and Solana Lead

Wyoming, USA has selected a public blockchain for its upcoming stablecoin WYST, using a public scoring system for evaluation. Ultimately, 11 chains made it to the candidate list, with Aptos and Solana tying for first place with a score of 32, followed closely by Sei with a score of 30. This result differs from the general perception of the activity level of public blockchain ecosystems and coin price performance in the market.

The Wyoming Stablecoin Committee was established in March 2023 under the state's Stable Token Act. The committee operates in a highly transparent manner, publicly disclosing project profiles, meeting agendas, scoring criteria, and remains active on multiple social media platforms.

The selection process is divided into three stages: first, 14 chains are筛选 out based on four basic criteria (permissionless access, supply transparency, on-chain analysis, freezing ability); second, scoring is conducted according to 9 indicators (3 points each), including network stability, user activity, TVL, stablecoin market capitalization, etc.; finally, additional advantages (2 points each) and risks (-2 points each) are considered for scoring adjustments.

The final selected candidate blockchains include 5 Layer 1 main chains and 4 Layer 2 chains. Notably, Aptos and SEI were newly included in the evaluation in the first quarter of 2025. The new round of evaluations updated the scoring criteria, adding considerations for vendor support, emerging market trends, and foundation support.

From the perspective of core indicators, Ethereum is far ahead in terms of TVL, but lags behind other public chains in transaction speed, finality duration, and fees. The diversion to Layer 2 has also led to a decline in active users on the Ethereum mainnet. The reason Aptos can rank alongside Solana is partly due to its balanced performance across various metrics, and partly thanks to the addition of new scoring criteria.

The results of this selection are worth noting for Ethereum supporters. Although Ethereum has long been considered the best choice for putting real assets on the blockchain, factors such as performance, cost, and scalability seem to be more valued in governmental technology selections. The degree of decentralization was not included in the scoring criteria, while factors such as freezing capability and local registration received more attention.

The WYST project was originally planned to launch before July 4, 2024, but has now been postponed to the third quarter of 2025. The project still needs to complete a series of tasks, including the formulation of reserve management rules, account establishment, and service provider selection. Franklin Templeton will be responsible for reserve management, Chainalysis will handle on-chain analysis, and will work with LayerZero and Fireblocks for integration.

In addition to Wyoming, places like Nebraska and the Northern Mariana Islands are also promoting similar stablecoin projects. This trend brings to mind the free banking era in 19th century America, when various institutions were issuing their own currencies.

With the rise in discussions about the renminbi stablecoin, large companies in China are also starting to pay attention to this field. In the future, it may be necessary to consider whether to launch a dedicated chain, use existing consortium chains, or choose international or domestic public chains. Although Wyoming's scoring and public disclosure system is not perfect, it provides valuable references for other regions and institutions. We look forward to seeing more innovative governance models emerge in the future.