The Next Stage of Stablecoins: Transitioning from Issuance to Distribution

Stablecoins have become an indispensable financial tool in the cryptocurrency space, with a total supply exceeding $240 billion and an annual trading volume reaching $3.1 trillion. However, the stablecoin ecosystem is entering a new phase, with value shifting from issuers to distributors.

Stablecoin Market Overview

• Total supply: $240 billion
• 30-day trading volume: $3.1 trillion
• Reserve Income: 10 billion US dollars

The supply of stablecoins is mainly distributed in:

• Centralized Exchange: 27%
• DeFi Protocol: 11%
• Unattributed Wallet: 54%

Trading volume mainly comes from:

• DeFi:21%
• MEV:31%
• Unattributed Wallet: 35%

The Transition from Issuance to Distribution

In the early stages, value is primarily concentrated in the issuer. Tether and Circle achieve huge revenues through reserve earnings.

Now, distributors are becoming a strategic high ground:

• Control user relationships and experiences
• Determine which stablecoins receive attention
• Obtain large promotional fees from the issuer

For example, Circle paid nearly $900 million to partners like Coinbase to promote USDC.

Main Application Scenarios

centralized exchange ( CEX )

• accounting for 27% of the total supply
• Account for 11% of the total trading volume
• Reserve income of 3 billion USD

Mainly used for deposits, withdrawals, and transfers between exchanges.

Decentralized Finance ( DeFi )

• Account for 11% of the total supply
• Account for 21% of total trading volume
• Reserve income of $1.1 billion

Mainly used in DEX, lending markets, CDP, etc. DeFi trading volume grew from $100 billion to $600 billion.

MEV

• Accounted for 31% of total trading volume

MEV bots extract value by reordering transactions, leading to an excessively high proportion of on-chain transaction volume.

Unattributed Wallet

• Account for 54% of the total supply
• accounting for 35% of total trading volume
• Reserve income of 5.6 billion USD

Including retail investors, unknown institutions, enterprises, etc., are the main sources of emerging use cases.

Conclusion

The stablecoin ecosystem is entering a new stage, with value shifting towards participants that build applications and infrastructure. The focus is moving from the currency itself to programmable systems, which are expected to experience exponential growth. The future will be defined by the ecosystem formed around stablecoins, rather than the stablecoins themselves.