Stablecoins Top $300B as USDT/USDC Duopoly Erodes; Banks Enter, Citi Sees Up to $4T by 2030

The stablecoin sector has crossed a historic threshold, topping $300 billion in total capitalization for the first time, based on DeFiLlama’s latest readings. Tether (USDT) remains the market heavyweight with a $176.25 billion market cap, representing 58.44% of the pie. Circle’s USDC holds the second slot with more than $74 billion outstanding, while Ethena’s yield-bearing USDe has climbed into third with roughly $14.83 billion in circulation.

Yet even amid robust expansion, the top two have ceded ground. Since October 2024, USDT and USDC have shed a combined five-plus percentage points of market share. Their collective dominance, which stood at 91.6% in March 2024, has slid to about 83.6% today. The shift underscores how the stablecoin landscape is broadening beyond the longstanding duopoly. Source: DeFiLlama.

The waning duopoly and the rise of new challengers
Industry commentator Nic Carter described the retreat of USDT and USDC’s combined dominance as “the end of the stablecoin duopoly.” In his view, two forces are driving the change: the surge of yield-bearing stablecoins, and new regulatory pathways that allow banks to enter the market directly.

Carter argues that as on-chain yields and revenue-sharing models become key differentiators, up-and-coming issuers can siphon liquidity from incumbents by offering more competitive returns. He also highlighted the impact of the GENIUS Act in the United States, which effectively opens the door for regulated financial institutions to issue their own stable-value tokens.

While no single bank is likely to match Tether’s global footprint immediately, Carter believes bank consortia present a credible path to scale. He anticipates that consortium-backed stablecoins could emerge as the most formidable new entrants over the next few years, especially if they combine strong compliance credentials with attractive yield mechanics or utility in payments and settlement.

Elsewhere in digital assets, market turbulence has hit certain data asset tokens (DATs), with products tied to TRX, ETH, and MSTR posting double-digit declines—another reminder that liquidity and risk profiles vary widely across token categories, even as stablecoins gain ground.

Banks are moving from the sidelines to the field
Front-line evidence of bank participation is mounting. In the United States, JPMorgan and Citigroup recently unveiled a joint venture to develop a stablecoin initiative. Across the Atlantic, Dutch lender ING has teamed up with UniCredit and seven additional European banks on a euro-denominated stablecoin designed to comply with the EU’s MiCA framework, with a launch targeted for 2026.

These efforts hint at a broader strategic turn: banks are positioning themselves not as bystanders but as active architects of the stablecoin economy. While the specter of deposit flight remains a perennial concern, Carter and other analysts argue that institutions will likely embrace issuance to solidify their roles in next-generation payments, settlement, and liquidity provisioning. Strategic advantages—faster cross-border transfers, programmable cash flows, and interoperability with tokenized assets—are proving too significant to ignore.

Citigroup lifts its 2030 forecast to as high as $4 trillion
Citigroup has updated its long-term outlook for the sector, lifting its “base case” forecast to $1.9 trillion and its “