Key Highlights
- Stablecoin transactions hit $33T in 2025, led by USDC and USDT, as digital dollars gain global adoption and corporate interest.
- USDC dominates DeFi for trading and lending, while Tether mainly supports everyday payments and value storage.
- Illegal stablecoin use surged to $154B, showing convenience and global acceptance make them a target for hackers and state-backed actors.
The total stablecoin transactions volume soared to $33 trillion in 2025, fueled by the growing use of digital dollars worldwide, according to Bloomberg. Supportive policies under the U.S. President Donald Trump helped drive this growth.
As per a Bloomberg report, according to Artemis data, USDC processed the most volume with a total of $18.3 trillion, followed by Tether’s USDT with a total of $13.3 trillion. The uniqueness of stablecoins is that they function just like normal money, which is pegged to the US dollar, so that users will not need to worry about price volatility.
One of the drivers is the Genius Act, passed in July, that provided clear legal rules, encouraging big companies like Standard Chartered, Walmart, and Amazon to consider launching their own stablecoins. The Trump family-linked company, World Liberty Financial, also launched a new digital dollar called USD1, giving the market a confidence boost.
Apart from their use by big companies, people in unstable countries are turning to stablecoins to protect their money. Anthony Yim, Co-Founder of Artemis, said “digital US dollars” are becoming more popular as global tensions grow.
USDC dominates DeFi, Tether holds everyday use
USDC leads in decentralized finance (DeFi) because it is easy to trade and widely trusted by regulators. Dante Disparte, Circle’s Chief Strategy Officer, said, “People choose USDC because it offers the deepest liquidity and the highest levels of regulatory trust in the world.”
On DeFi platforms, automated programs handle trading and lending, so the same USDC moves around many times every day. By contrast, Tether is mostly used for everyday payments and storing value.
People usually keep USDT in their wallets instead of moving it around often. As a result, USDT leads in market size at $187 billion, while USDC is $75 billion, even though USDC handles more transactions.
Moreover, Artemis data shows that activity on decentralized platforms dropped slightly, suggesting that more people are using stablecoins outside traditional crypto.
Record illegal activity highlights stablecoin risks
While stablecoins grew legally, illegal activity also hit a record $154 billion, according to Chainalysis. Much of this came from state-backed hackers and organized crime. Lazarus Group, a hacker group linked to North Korea, reportedly stole about $2 billion. The Bybit hack in February 2025 took nearly $1.5 billion, making it the biggest crypto theft in this sector’s history so far.
Stablecoins comprised 84% of the illicit cryptocurrency transactions, while the Bitcoin ratio dropped to 7%. In comparison, Bitcoin led all illegitimate transactions five years ago at 70%, against 15% for stablecoins.
This can be attributed to the convenience of transferring stablecoins, staying less volatile, as well as their acceptance worldwide. The highly popular stablecoins include USDT, USDC, as well as the Russia-backed A7A5.
Growth trends and future outlook
According to Artemis, transaction volumes rose steadily, with Q4 2025 reaching $11 trillion, up from $8.8 trillion in Q3. Bloomberg Intelligence projects total stablecoin flows could hit $56 trillion by 2030. So far, according to DefiLIama, the overall market has grown to $307.2 billion, showing long-term expansion since 2020 despite short-term stagnation. USDT continues to hold a 60.5% share of the total market.
Stablecoins are becoming more mainstream as countries and corporations begin to utilize them for payments and money management. But the International Monetary Fund is warning that they could disrupt the traditional banking system as they make money management increasingly unpredictable by putting safe investments at risk.
Also Read: Morgan Stanley to Launch Digital Wallet for Tokenized Assets
