Tether still dominates stablecoins despite competition — Nansen

Despite growing competition from emerging issuers, the stablecoin market remains largely dominated by a few key players. According to data from Web3 research firm Nansen, Tether’s USDt continues to lead among US dollar-pegged stablecoins, even as competition intensifies.

As of April 25, Tether (USDT) has a roughly 66% market share among stablecoins, compared to around 28% for USDC (USDC), Nansen said in the April 25 report. Ethena’s USDe stablecoin ranks a distant third, touting a market share of just over 2%.

Nansen expects Tether’s lead to endure even as rivals such as USDC clock faster growth rates.

“With nearly 3x as many users as Uniswap and 50+% more transactions than the next app, Tether is by and far the largest use case of onchain activity,” Nansen said.

“Despite the potential dispersion in stables, we inevitably believe this is a ‘winner-takes-most’ market dynamic,” the Web3 researcher added. 

Tether is also the most profitable stablecoin issuer, clocking nearly $14 billion in 2024 profits. The company earns revenue by accepting US dollars to mint USDT and subsequently investing those dollars into highly liquid, yield-bearing instruments such as US Treasury bills. 

“Given the growth of USDT and USDC, the users are clearly expressing that they do not necessarily care about the yield as they are forgoing it to Tether and Circle -they simply want access to the most liquid and ‘stable’/ least-likely-to-depeg stablecoin out there,” Nansen said.

Competitive landscape

Adoption of USDC has accelerated since November, when US President Donald Trump’s election victory ushered in a more favorable US regulatory environment for crypto, Nansen said.

Circle’s US-regulated stablecoin has been “particularly attractive to institutions requiring regulatory clarity,” the report said.

But USDC now faces “intensifying competition as major traditional financial institutions (i.e., Fidelity, PayPal, and banks) enter the market,” Nansen said, adding that stablecoins, including PayPal’s PYUSD and Ripple USD, are “rapidly gaining traction.” 

On April 25, payment processor Stripe tipped plans to create a new stablecoin product of its own after buying stablecoin platform Bridge last year.

Despite its smaller market share, Ethena’s yield-bearing USDe stablecoin remains “competitive on most fronts moving forward,” partly because of integrations across centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, the report said.

Since launching in 2024, Ethena’s stablecoin has generated an average annualized yield of approximately 19%, according to Ethena’s website.

Magazine: Bitcoin payments are being undermined by centralized stablecoins