The stablecoin industry, mapped.
Who issues, what backs the tokens, how regulators have responded, and where banks, card networks and asset managers are putting stablecoin rails into production. Every figure is dated and sourced.
Market structure
Top ten stablecoins by market capitalization
Total supply is about $302.1B across 303 tracked stablecoins, and 99.4% of it references the US dollar. Two issuers hold about 85% of the market.
| Token | Issuer | Backing model | Market cap | Relative size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. USDT | Tether | Fiat reserves (T-bills, cash, repo) plus other assets | $183.30B | |
| 2. USDC | Circle | Fiat reserves (cash, short T-bills) | $73.60B | |
| 3. USDS | Sky (formerly Maker) | Crypto & RWA collateral, protocol-governed | $9.57B | |
| 4. USDe | Ethena | Synthetic: crypto collateral with short-perp hedge | $4.73B | |
| 5. DAI | Sky (formerly Maker) | Crypto & RWA collateral, protocol-governed | $4.54B | |
| 6. USD1 | World Liberty Financial | Fiat reserves, BitGo custody | $4.34B | |
| 7. USDG | Paxos (Global Dollar) | Fiat reserves | $3.28B | |
| 8. PYUSD | PayPal / Paxos | Fiat reserves | $2.81B | |
| 9. RLUSD | Ripple | Fiat reserves, NYDFS-chartered trust company | $2.35B | |
| 10. USDD | TRON DAO | Crypto collateral | $1.51B |
Market caps as of 16 Sep 2026, Stablecoinbeat (aggregator). Backing descriptions are summaries; read each issuer's reserve reports before relying on them.
Design families
Five ways to build a dollar on-chain
Fiat-reserve payment stablecoins
A regulated issuer holds cash and short-dated government debt 1:1 and mints against it. Examples: USDC, USDT, PYUSD, RLUSD, USDG. This is the model the GENIUS Act, MiCA EMTs and Hong Kong's regime are written around.
Tokenized deposits
A bank's own deposit liability, represented on a ledger and covered by deposit regulation. Examples: JPMorgan's JPMD on Base, and the shared JPMorgan–BofA–Citi network run by The Clearing House, targeted for H1 2027.
Crypto-collateralized
Over-collateralized smart-contract vaults, increasingly mixed with real-world assets. Examples: DAI and USDS (Sky) and USDD. These coins are generally outside the "payment stablecoin" perimeter.
Synthetic dollars
Hold crypto collateral and hedge it with derivatives, so yield comes from funding rates. Example: Ethena USDe. They are exposed to negative funding and to the exchanges and custodians involved.
Tokenized treasuries
Fund shares, not payment instruments, often used as reserve or collateral assets. About $15.6B in total: BUIDL $2.68B, USYC $2.60B, USDY $2.24B, and Franklin iBENJI/BENJI $2.38B.
Asset-referenced & RWA-backed
Tokens backed by baskets, commodities or pledged real-world assets. They need custody, appraisal and legal perfection of collateral, and are regulated as ARTs under MiCA or as securities in many places.
Regulation
The global rulebook
The main regimes now converge on full reserves, redemption at par, segregation, licensing, and a ban on paying holders interest. They still differ on who may issue and how foreign coins are treated.
| Jurisdiction | Framework | Status & key terms |
|---|---|---|
| United States | GENIUS Act (signed 18 Jul 2025) | Reserves at least 1:1 and diversified. Permitted issuers are bank subsidiaries, OCC-supervised nonbanks and state-qualified issuers; state issuers above $10B move to federal oversight. Issuers may not pay yield. Effective on the earlier of 18 Jan 2027 or 120 days after final rules. OCC proposed its rule on 25 Feb 2026 and is targeting a final rule for late 2026. Treasury and the FDIC have also proposed rules. The CLARITY Act market-structure bill failed Senate cloture 49–50 on 15 Sep 2026. |
| US charters | OCC national trust banks | Conditional approvals went to Circle, Ripple, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets and BitGo (Dec 2025) and to Bridge/Stripe (Feb 2026). |
| European Union | MiCA Titles III & IV (ART / EMT) | The transitional period for crypto service providers ended 1 Jul 2026, and about 210 CASPs were authorised by May 2026. Among top-10 coins, only Circle's USDC and EURC are authorised EMTs. USDT has been delisted from major EEA venues. |
| United Kingdom | FSMA 2023 · FCA crypto regime | Final rules were published 30 Jun 2026. Applications run 30 Sep 2026 to 28 Feb 2027, and the regime starts 25 Oct 2027. The Bank of England will supervise systemic stablecoins. |
| Hong Kong | Stablecoins Ordinance (in force 1 Aug 2025) | The first HKMA licences were issued 10 Apr 2026, out of 36 applications: to Standard Chartered/HKT/Animoca (FRS01) and to HSBC (FRS02). |
| Singapore | MAS · Payment Services Act amendments | Consultation opened 1 Sep 2026 (closes 16 Oct 2026). It covers single-currency SGD/G10 stablecoins, a recognition route for foreign issuers, systemic designation, and a limited number of licences. |
| UAE | CBUAE Payment Token Services Regulation | Fully in force since the transition ended in June 2025. AE Coin is the licensed dirham token. Dubai's DFSA has approved RLUSD. |
| Japan | Payment Services Act · EPI regime | The FSA removed the ¥1M per-transaction cap on 24 Aug 2026 and set up a dedicated stablecoin division. Live issuers include JPYC and SBI Shinsei Trust Bank's JPYSC. |
| Basel Committee | Prudential treatment of crypto exposures | Implementation date 1 Jan 2026. Stablecoins that pass redemption-risk and reserve tests are Group 1b; unhedged Group 2b exposures carry a 1250% risk weight. An expedited review of targeted elements was announced 25 Feb 2026. |
Sources: MoFo on OCC proposal · OCC · Federal Register (Treasury) · CoinDesk (CLARITY) · CoinDesk (charters) · Coinpaprika (MiCA) · FCA · HKMA · Reed Smith (MAS) · Pinsent Masons (UAE) · TechTimes (Japan) · BIS d579 · BIS Feb 2026. Not legal advice.
Adoption
Where the rails are already live
Card networks
Visa reports stablecoin settlement at a ~$20B annualized run-rate, more than 15× year over year, with over 160 stablecoin-linked card programs. Mastercard has integrated RLUSD settlement.
Issuance-as-a-service
Stripe's Bridge runs "Open Issuance", which powers branded dollars such as Phantom CASH and MetaMask mUSD. Paxos issues USDG and PYUSD for partners. White-label issuance is becoming a standard product.
Bank networks
JPMorgan's JPMD deposit token is live on Base for institutional clients. JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citi are building a shared tokenized-deposit network through The Clearing House. SG-Forge issues EURCV and USDCV.
Machine payments (x402)
The HTTP 402 payment standard moved to the x402 Foundation under the Linux Foundation on 14 Jul 2026. Its members include Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Google, AWS, Cloudflare and Coinbase. Transaction counts are high, but real commercial volume is still early.