Lessons From 9 Trailblazing Stablecoin Issuers

The future of money was not-so-quietly ushered in this summer with the stroke of a pen. But when US President Donald Trump signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act) into law he did more than begin a new era of dollars flowing back and forth on public blockchains. He opened business for a wave of financial innovation like the world has never seen.

The GENIUS Act catches US financial regulatory policy up to one of the most straightforward models to emerge from stablecoin innovation: US Treasuries backing on-chain dollar liabilities. In the speculative world of crypto trading, the explosion of innovation has already gone much further. Regulatory clarity has only added fuel to the fire.  

The total value in stablecoins has increased 54% since Trump was elected, just on the promise of regulation. Not only has J.P. Morgan pivoted from a token issued on a centralized database to one on a public blockchain, but in June, Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank published a paper with Axelar  describing how to tokenize any asset built on public blockchains. Also in June, The Wall Street Journal reported that both Walmart and Amazon are considering launching their own stablecoins. 

To get a better understanding of the rapidly evolving stablecoin landscape, Axelar developer Interop Labs published the Definitive Guide to Stablecoin Issuance, going all the way back to the beginning, to identify four main issuance models: Custodial (Fiat-backed), Crypto-Collateralized, Algorithmic/Hybrid, and Bank-Integrated/Tokenized Deposits. 

In this article, we'll look at nine trailblazers who have advanced the evolution of stablecoins across all these categories. Some are dominant in size; others remain relatively small. All have lessons to offer new entrants. The article charts the territory of what was possible, what is possible, and what’s to lose if you fall behind the times.

1. USDT (Tether)

Market cap: $167 billion*

The stablecoin era was unofficially born in October, 2014 when Hong Kong-based Tether minted a stablecoin originally called Realcoin, designed to be backed by US dollars and dollar-equivalent assets. Initially adopted by crypto traders as on-chain cash accounts, the stablecoin that was to become USDT quickly evolved into something more: a way for people anywhere in the world to easily store or move value in US dollars. 

After more than a decade largely focusing its business outside the United States, Tether's CEO Paolo Ardoino in July told Bloomberg it was working to officially enter the US. It’s a huge move for the company: it was only three years ago the CFTC fined Tether and sister exchange Bitfinex $41 million for making “untrue or misleading” claims it was fully backed by US dollars. 

Tether vitals

• Revenue: $13 billion in 2024, according to its attestation report.
• Category: Custodial
• Strengths and weaknesses: 70 percent of all stablecoins are Tether, giving them massive momentum among existing users. But a number of recent asset freezes by the Tether team has raised questions about centralization of power in the stablecoin market. Meanwhile, Tether’s CEO earlier this year refused to comply with Europe’s MiCA regulation. Tether has never submitted to an independent audit.

2. USDC (Circle)

Market cap: $68 billion*

Four years after Tether was founded, a small bitcoin payment firm, Circle Internet Financial, based in Boston, partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to co-launch USDC, a stablecoin designed from the ground up to comply with regulation. 

In June, Circle Internet Group went public at $31 per share, valuing the company at $8 billion. It’s since exploded in price, and is currently valued at $47 billion. The company bills itself as the most licensed stablecoin company in the world, with licenses in the US, Europe, the U.K. Singapore, the UAE, Bermuda, Canada and Japan.

Circle vitals

• Revenue: $1.6 billion in 2024, according to its financials.
• Category: Custodial
• Strengths and weaknesses: These are one and the same with Circle. Prior to going public, Circle was reportedly only 213% smaller than Tether, but earned 8,000% less. It turns out compliance is expensive, especially in the form of a larger staff and fees paid to its partner exchange Coinbase.

3. USDG & USDP (Paxos)

USDG Market cap: $329 million

USDP Market cap: $106 million

Also in September 2018, the folks behind another bitcoin startup, itBit Exchange, launched the Paxos Standard. Now known as the Paxos Dollar (USDP), this dollar-backed stablecoin was designed to let itBit traders instantly cash out their digital assets for dollars. Prior to launching USDP,  Paxos became the first crypto trust company under New York state law and though significantly smaller than USDC is positioned to be a compliant stablecoin competitor with a twist: it helps other companies mint their own stablecoins. 

In November, Paxos launched the Global Dollar Network, in partnership with Anchorage Digital, Bullish, Galaxy Digital, Kraken, Nuvei and Robinhood. At the center of the network is the Global Dollar (USDG), a stablecoin issued by Paxos out of Singapore.

In June, Mastercard joined the network, adding USDG to a number of other stablecoins it supports. In addition to its stablecoin-as-a-service revenue, Paxos likely generates revenue from interest-generating assets backing its stablecoins, transaction fees on crypto trading, and custody service fees.

Paxos vitals

• Revenue: Undisclosed
• Category: Custodial
• Strengths and weaknesses: Compliant in multiple jurisdictions, Paxos nevertheless faces moat issues. Early partner PayPal is notably absent from the Global Dollar Network launch, and is reportedly seen as a rising competitor.

4. JPM Coin & JPMD (J.P. Morgan)

Market cap: $0

A pilot project from one of the world's largest banks with 1 million tokens is currently valued at zero dollars.

In February 2019, JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced JPM Coin, one of the first B2B stablecoins. Launched in October 2020, it was a faster, cheaper way for J.P. Morgan's institutional clients to transfer funds. By the Fall of 2023 JPM Coin was reportedly transacting more than $1 billion a day. In June, 2025, J.P. Morgan announced JPMD, a stablecoin that would tokenize customer deposits on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2. 

J.P. Morgan's blockchain work has undergone numerous iterations, starting as Quorum, a private version of Ethereum (eventually sold to Consensys), then evolving into Onyx, supporting a number of distributed ledger offerings, before being rebranded as Kinexys last year. The latest incarnation of its original digital payments solution was already moving $2 billion a day in 2024, and the bank’s work has continued to evolve. In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that J.P. Morgan and fellow owners of Early Warning Services (the company behind Zelle) were considering launching a joint stablecoin. The following month, Kinexys revealed JPMD, a proof-of-concept that would tokenize customer deposits. Though the bank describes the token as an “alternative to stablecoins” its creation on an open-source blockchain for public use places it close to the definition of a stablecoin, and placing J.P. Morgan in a leadership position for bank-issued stablecoins.

J.P. Morgan vitals

• Revenue: N/A
• Category: Bank-integrated
• Strengths and weaknesses: Though the proof-of-concept was built on a public blockchain the bank describes it as a permissioned implementation. The network effects of the assets will likely be undermined by J.P. Morgan’s tight controls; but the bank last year generated a record $18 billion payments revenue, meaning it’s large enough to be self-supportive.

5. USTC (Terra)

Market cap: $75 million

In the Spring of 2019 a small crypto startup, Terraform Labs, launched the Terra mainnet and the Luna token, one half of the greatest stablecoin failure to date. TerraUSD (UST), launched the following September, was supposed to be pegged to the US dollar through an algorithm that incentivized users to burn the volatile LUNA asset and mint new UST, controlling the price. When the algorithm fell out of balance in the first quarter of 2022, a death spiral sent the currency from a high market cap of $18 billion to $80 million as a deprecated “classic” version, USTC. 

Purely algorithmic stablecoins have no deposits to back them. Enthusiasm for this approach has waned since the Terra collapse, but the Genius Act does mention them, putting them on a two year moratorium while the technology matures. The largest current algorithmic stablecoin, USDD, was launched by Justin Sun in 2022 and now has a $534 million market value. 

Terra vitals

• Revenue: $0.00
• Category: Algorithmic

Strengths and weaknesses: Algorithmic stablecoins like Terra could improve capital efficiency and remove counterparty risks, but have so far proven risky.

6. DAI & USDS (MakerDAO)

USDS market cap: $8 billion*

DAI market cap: $4.1 billion*

MakerDAO launched Single-Collateral DAI (SAI) on December 18, 2017 on the Ethereum mainnet as the first truly decentralized, crypto-collateralized stablecoin. Backed solely by ETH in over-collateralized debt positions and issued through automated smart contracts, it maintained a soft peg to the US dollar without relying on a central custodian—an innovation that set it apart from fiat-backed stablecoins. Governance by MKR token holders allowed decentralized control over risk parameters and stability mechanisms.

In 2021, MakerDAO replaced SAI with Multi-Collateral DAI (DAI, or sometimes referred to as MCD), enabling a mix of crypto and real-world assets as collateral, improving stability and scalability. Key innovations followed: the Dai Savings Rate to earn yield, the Peg Stability Module for efficient peg maintenance, and onboarding of real-world asset vaults. In August 2024, under its “Endgame” plan, MakerDAO rebranded as Sky, introducing USDS (successor to DAI) and SKY (successor to MKR), with optional conversions from the legacy tokens. New features included tokenized rewards for USDS holders and a governance-controlled freeze function for compliance, while PureDai preserved the original unfreezable design.

MakerDAO vitals:

• Revenue: $174 million
• Category: Crypto-collateralized
• Strengths and weaknesses: Though USDS remains one of the largest crypto-collateralized stablecoins it is in close competition with Ethena USD, which has a $7.1 billion market cap. Reports estimate MakerDAO's 2024 revenue at $174 million.

7. USDY (Ondo Finance) 

Market cap: $672 million

In January 2023, two Goldman Sachs veterans launched Ondo Finance, a Layer 1, proof-of-stake protocol bringing real-world assets, including US Treasuries, to both US and non-US investors. USDY is a yield-generating stablecoin backed by tokenized notes backed by Treasuries and demand deposits, offered only to non-US investors. Ondo Finance also issues ONDO, a crypto token capped at a supply of 10 billion, used in platform governance and to reward liquidity providers. A second token, OUSG, is not pegged to a dollar value per unit, but has much in common with stablecoins. OUSG is a tokenized short-term US Treasury bills ETF, representing tokenized shares of the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL). 

In July 2025 Ondo and venture firm Pantera Capital announced Ondo Catalyst, a $250 million investment fund to bring capital markets to Ondo and accelerate the tokenization of real-world assets. 

Ondo Finance vitals:

• Revenue: Not disclosed. Ondo charges 20 bps on some redemptions, as well as generating revenue on the interest rate spread between the tokens’ underlying US Treasuries and bank deposits, and the interest rate paid to USDY holders. 
• Category: Custodial
• Strengths and weaknesses: One of the more truly decentralized stablecoin platforms, Ondo also has numerous other services. While the multi-token setup allows Ondo to be more decentralized than other stablecoin platforms, it’s also complicated to use and though it’s not the platform’s fault, many of its products aren’t available in the US

8. EURCV (Société Générale)

Market cap: $50 million*

J.P. Morgan has been a first mover in the U.S. with bank-issued stablecoins like JPM Coin, and in Europe, Société Générale’s SG Forge is playing a similar role. SG Forge launched EURCV in April 2023 as a MiCA-compliant, Euro-pegged token fully backed by segregated cash reserves, redeemable at par, and transferable on Ethereum. In June 2025, it announced USDCV, a U.S. Dollar-backed counterpart launching in July. Deutsche Bank is following suit through AllUnity, a joint venture with DWS, Flow Traders and Galaxy, which received BaFin approval in July 2025 to issue its own Euro-backed stablecoin. 

SG Forge has also built a record of innovation bridging banking and blockchain, including a 2021 pilot that used tokenized covered bonds as collateral for a $20 million DeFi loan on MakerDAO.

Société Générale vitals:

• Revenue: Such bank models are expected to generate revenue through the standard banking spread and interchange fees.
• Category: Custodial
• Strengths and weaknesses: The upside is leveraging established banking infrastructure and trust; the downside is limited liquidity outside the issuing bank’s ecosystem and uncertain regulatory status for tokenized deposits.

9. PYUSD (PayPal)

Market cap: $1.2 billion*

In August, 2023, just a few months after Société Générale became the first major bank to issue a Euro-backed stablecoin, PayPal took stablecoins mainstream, announcing PYUSD which would be available for cross-border payments and remittances on the widely used payments network.

PYUSD is issued by Paxos, a regulated trust company, and backed 1:1 by dollar deposits and short-term Treasuries, giving it transparency and a relatively conservative reserve model. PayPal recently announced a plan to offer PYUSD holders a 3.7% annual yield on balances to encourage greater usage of its stablecoin. However, it has not done so at this writing and the plan likely faces headwinds due to the GENIUS Act's explicit prohibition of yield offerings on stablecoins. 

PayPal vitals:

• Revenue: Undisclosed.
• Category: Custodial
• Strengths and weaknesses: PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin benefits from strong brand recognition, a large payments network, and regulatory credibility, which support trust and distribution. Its main weakness is limited adoption outside PayPal’s ecosystem compared to larger stablecoins. After passage of the GENIUS Act, PYUSD faces new risks as a non-bank-issued token, including stricter compliance demands and possible restrictions on use cases, which could hinder its ability to scale against bank-backed competitors.

Conclusion: What to Expect in New Stablecoin Issuance

Going forward we expect to see an interoperable network of stablecoins issued by every kind of company. Not only will the kinds of companies evolve and expand, but the way the stablecoins are created. Some models will certainly pull directly from these archetypes, while others blend multiple models into something new. To help achieve that interoperability we’ll throw in a tenth category that isn’t really a new way to build a stablecoin so much as its ways to connect them. 

In April, credit card giant Visa partnered with Stripe’s stablecoin platform Bridge to enable everyday purchases in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Chile. In June Ottawa, Canada-based ecommerce giant Shopify partnered with Stripe to let shoppers in 34 countries pay with USDC on Base.

A week after the Shopify news Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank copublished a paper with Interop Labs, and Memento Blockchain describing the Digital Asset Management Access (DAMA) 2 tokenisation platform, built on public blockchains.The interoperability will go global. The month after our paper a joint venture between Deutsche Bank asset manager DWS, Flow Traders, and Galaxy Digital received a license to issue a euro-backed stablecoin.

*Source: CoinGecko, data pulled Aug 18 2025.

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