Stablecoins are now well established in the crypto markets and have become an integral and essential part of it. The US rules adopted in 2025 created a clearer path for compliant issuers, while the market has since moved through another crypto downturn. The latest months show that clarity has not meant straight-line growth: the tracked market-cap basket contracted in June and July, steadied in August, and edged higher during the first four days of September. Let's check how the leaders are holding up.
Stablecoin market cap remains concentrated around Tether USDT and Circle's USDC. Earlier cycles included Binance USD - BUSD, the collapsed Terra UST, and a relatively larger DAI, later joined by USDS. Newer coins have gained some share, but none is close to the top two. The summer data shows different paths underneath a nearly flat overall market.
Apart from the fiat backed stablecoins (USDT, USDC, ….) that are keeping dollars in the banks or equivalent like T-bills, there are tokens like DAI, HBD that are backed by other crypto as collateral, and/or using conversion on chain operations to maintain the peg.
Here we will be looking at:
- Tether [USDT]
- USD Coin [USDC]
- USDS / Dai
- Ethena USD [USDe]
- PayPal USD [PYUSD]
- USD1 - World Liberty Financial
There are a few more out but we will focus on the above as the biggest ones in market cap.
Tether [USDT]
Tether is the oldest stablecoin in crypto. It has been around since 2015. Allegedly it is founded by the Bitfinex exchange. There was a lot of controversy around this coin in the past, including court cases. The main issue that has been raised has been is each coin backed by one dollar in the bank. Tether is an offshore company with a location outside of the US jurisdiction. With the new stablecoin act in the US Tether is set to become onshore company within the next three years.
Tether has survived multiple crashes and run on the banks in the last years, and it has proven itself to work as intended in the mist of the biggest chaos in the crypto industry.
Here is the market cap for Tether.
As mentioned, Tether started operating back in 2015, but it gained some significant market cap for the first time in 2017. A real bull run and a massive increase in the market cap happened in 2021 when its market cap went from under 10B to more than 83B. After the 2022 crypto crash, Tether's market cap contracted from 83B to 65B, then resumed growth through 2025. This summer supply softened rather than expanding.
In 2024 and 2025 Tether added close to 100B in its market cap. From 90B at the beginning of 2024 close to 190 at the end of 2025.
From May 27 to September 4, Tether slipped 3.2%, from 189.4B to 183.4B. Most of the decline came in June and July; August and early September were flat, leaving USDT dominant but below its spring peak.
USD Coin [USDC]
USDC is a common project between Circle and Coinbase. It is a US based company. Here is the chart.
USDC was founded back in 2018 and it gained real momentum in 2021, when it reached close to 60B. A drop followed afterwards in 2022, and even bigger drop in the first half of 2023 due to a bank crisis in the US. In March 2023, one of the banks where USDC had a share of its reserves in USD collapsed, causing the market to panic and pushing down the peg of USDC as low as 88 cents. This was short lived and the USDC peg recovered in a day or two, and later it even managed to get access to its funds in the collapsed bank. But the damage was done, and a lot of funds exited from USDC.
USDC resumed growth in 2024 and reached a new ATH near 80B. After pulling back in early summer 2026, it stood at 74.4B on September 4. USDC fell 2.8% in June and 2.4% in July, then recovered 2.7% in August and 0.7% through September 4.
USDT vs USDC
When we plot the market cap of the two biggest stablecoins we get this.
After growing in 2021, the two market caps diverged several times during 2022 and 2023. Both grew again from 2024, then both fell during June and July 2026. Tether remains in a massive lead, but recent momentum was better for USDC. During August and early September, USDT stayed near 183.4B while USDC rebounded to 74.4B. The gap is still close to 109B.
Ethena USD [USDe]
Ethena is a type of synthetic dollar that is dollar backed by a “delta-neutral” position that goes long spot stETH (and BTC) and simultaneously short an equivalent ETH-PERP (and BTC-PERP) position. The net effect is that both positions offset one another and therefore USDe is theoretically able to maintain its 1:1 peg.
Ethena grew rapidly through October 2025, when USDe approached 15B. After crypto prices dropped, it lost its peg on some exchanges and its market cap fell sharply. It entered summer 2026 near 4.5B after another reset in May. USDe fell 13.2% in July, then gained 5.6% in August and 4.5% by September 4 to reach 4.26B, still 4.1% below May 27.
USDS
USDS or formerly DAI is the decentralized version for stablecoin. It runs as a smart contract on Ethereum. Everyone can use the MakerDAO protocol, now called SKY, deposit collateral and generate stablecoin as a loan.
USDS / DAI works as overcollateralized stablecoin, where users put in crypto assets to mint USDS / DAI. DAI was established back in 2019, it grew through 2021 a lot reaching 10B market cap, and it has been in decline since then up November 2023. There was a rebranding happening in 2024 when USDS was introduced and users were pushed to that version. Both DAI and USDS now exist but it is USDS that leads the way. DAI can be converted to USDS at 1 to 1. The main difference is that DAI is the old school decentralized stablecoin where users can mint tokens by themself by locking collateral like BTC, ETH and it cant be frozen. USDS has freeze button and it is more centralized and regulator friendly. The minting is mostly done by so called sub-DAOs, SkyStars, that can mint tokens on other chains, but also a real world assets RWAs like treasury bills to include as collateral.
Combined USDS neared 12B in spring 2026. By September 4 it was 9.79B, down 12.1% from May 27 after a weak June and July and a modest August bounce, but still more than twice DAI at 4.58B.
USD1, pyUSD and more…
USD1, launched in April 2025 and related to the Trump family, ended September 4 at 4.21B after a sharp July contraction and partial August recovery. PYUSD ended at 3.03B, below May but rebounding in August and early September. Other tokens include Falcon USD and Ripple USD.
Cumulative Stablecoins Market Cap
Here is the total chart, retaining the workbook's eight-coin-plus-6% proxy.
This long-term chart shows the 2021 expansion led by Tether, followed by USDC and DAI. We can also see the rise and fall of BUSD, renewed growth in 2024 and 2025, and the summer 2026 pullback.
Tether and USDC together hold 85.7% of the workbook proxy. Tether dominates, while USDC remains the only competitor above 70B.
The workbook proxy fell from 309.3B on May 31 to 303.8B in June and 297.5B in July, then recovered to 299.7B in August and 300.7B on September 4. CoinGecko's direct category snapshot was 290.7B; the gap reflects the preserved 6% proxy.
For context on a longer timeframe, on a yearly basis the market cap for stablecoins looks like this.
After declines in 2022 and 2023, the market grew in 2024 and 2025. The new 2026 year-to-date bar is 300.7B through September 4, slightly below 307.2B at the end of 2025.
Top Stablecoins Market Share
Here is the chart for the market share of the top stablecoins.
Tether still dominates. Regulation brought more issuers, but has not changed the ranking. The latest months show a mature market consolidating around two leaders while smaller coins rotate. USDT holds 61.0%, USDC 24.7% and USDS 3.3%. DAI, USDe and USD1 are at 1.4% to 1.5% each, PYUSD is 1.0%, and the remaining proxy is 5.7%.
All the best @dalz
