Tether, Trump-Backed USD1 Among Fastest-Moving Stablecoins in 2025
In 2025, the stablecoin supply surged by more than $100 billion, reaching $314 billion by year-end. Instead of focusing solely on market capitalization, velocity—calculated as total volume divided by average supply—was used to gauge stablecoin performance, ranking them by turnover.
Tether's USDT leads in velocity at 166 with a market cap around $186 billion. Primarily traded on Ethereum (46.3%) and Tron (41.4%), USDT was launched in 2014. In March 2025, Binance delisted USDT for EU users to comply with MiCA regulations. Tether reported roughly $10 billion in profits during the year.
Ripple's RLUSD ranks second with a velocity of 71 and a market cap near $1.3 billion. Ripple received provisional OCC approval for a national banking charter in December 2025 and MAS approval to expand in Singapore. RLUSD, positioned for institutional use, has integrated with Securitize.
Circle's USDC holds a velocity of 56 and a market cap about $78.4 billion. The company benefited from the GENIUS Act, with its Arc layer-1 testnet hosting early participants such as BlackRock, Visa, and AWS. The NYSE paused trading of Circle's CRCL three times on debut. Circle reported $740 million in Q3 revenue, up 66% year-over-year.
USD1, launched in April 2025 by World Liberty Financial co-founded by Donald Trump Jr., shows velocity at 39 and reached a $1 billion market cap in its debut month. USD1 aims to be Solana's go-to stablecoin through partnerships with Bonk and Raydium, featuring integrations with Coinbase and FalconX.
PayPal's PYUSD has a velocity of 18 with a market cap around $3.8 billion. PayPal expanded PYUSD to nine blockchains via LayerZero. Despite an internal error minting and burning about $300 trillion PYUSD, no security breach occurred and customer funds remained safe.
Ethena Labs' USDe recorded a velocity of 11; market cap grew from roughly $5.8 billion in January to $6.5 billion by December 15, after peaking near $15 billion before an October flash crash. USDe is delta-neutral, using staked ETH and perpetual futures hedges, and has faced regulatory scrutiny.
Sky's USDS has velocity 1 and a market cap growth from $5.2 billion to $9.8 billion over 12 months, an 85% increase. USDS is a rebrand of MakerDAO's DAI, functioning mainly as a DeFi yield instrument offering 4% rewards paid in SKY tokens rather than cash.
