Ten Stablecoins Hold 95.7% of $311B Market

Ten stablecoins with market capitalizations above $1 billion accounted for about $297.5 billion, or 95.7% of the roughly $311 billion stablecoin market in Q1 2026, according to the Stablecoin Issuance Landscape Q1 2026 Report. Tether’s USDT was listed at about $184 billion and Circle’s USDC at about $79 billion.

The report lists the $1B club members and their market caps as USDT ($184.08B), USDC ($79.16B), USDS ($11.26B), USDe ($5.92B), USD1 ($4.59B), DAI ($4.30B), PYUSD ($4.13B), USDG ($1.77B), USDF ($1.75B) and RLUSD ($1.55B). Combined, those ten tokens represented roughly $297.5 billion of supply.

Concentration within the club is uneven. The top five-USDT, USDC, USDS, USDe and USD1-held about $285 billion, or nearly 90% of total supply. USDT and USDC together made up about 84% of the overall market.

Reserve backing differed across issuers. USDC, PYUSD and RLUSD reported near-100% holdings in cash and short-term U.S. Treasuries with regulated custody and frequent attestations. USDT’s disclosed reserves included cash equivalents, Treasuries, secured loans, crypto and other assets. USDe operates as a synthetic, delta-neutral dollar backed by spot crypto hedged with futures. Sky Money’s USDS and MakerDAO’s DAI rely on crypto collateral and on-chain reserves.

Stablecoin supply was concentrated on a few blockchains. Ethereum hosted roughly $162.5 billion in stablecoin supply, or about 52–55% of the market. Tron held about $86.8 billion, where USDT is the dominant rail. Solana accounted for about $15.7 billion and showed growth for USDC and PYUSD.

Time-to-$1B for new issuers shortened significantly. USDT took about three years to reach $1 billion after its 2014 launch. Ethena’s USDe crossed $1 billion in roughly six weeks after its February 2024 debut. USDG reached $1 billion in about five months after its July 2025 launch, and RLUSD reached $1.55 billion around 15 months after launching in December 2024.

Growth in 2025 was largest among several regulated and yield-bearing entrants. PayPal’s PYUSD grew about 726% in 2025, noting PayPal integrations and a Solana presence. USDe grew about 145% in 2025, USDG rose about 169%, and USDS grew roughly 74%.

The report lists past large failures. TerraUSD (UST) collapsed in May 2022 after losing its peg, erasing an estimated $40 billion in investor value. Binance USD (BUSD) was wound down after regulatory action in early 2023. Other failed or impaired projects named include USTC, USDN, DEI, flexUSD, IRON Finance and aUSD. The report states that no fully reserved, transparently audited fiat-backed stablecoin has collapsed from the $1 billion tier.

Revenue and reserve economics were reported for major issuers. Tether reported over $10 billion in net profit in 2025 from its reserve base. Circle reported about $2.7 billion in revenue in 2025. The report notes regulators in the U.K., the EU under MiCA, and U.S. authorities working on frameworks such as the GENIUS Act are addressing single-issuer risk and market stability.

Usage patterns varied by token. USDT led transactional volume and remittances, USDC was used more for institutional reserves, DAI and USDS supported on-chain credit and composability, and USDe and USDS offered yield-bearing options. The broader stablecoin market handled roughly $33 trillion in on-chain volume in 2025, indicating high turnover relative to circulating supply.

The report identified additional tokens near the $1 billion mark or growing fast, including tokenized Treasury products and euro and decentralized options such as USYC, BlackRock’s BUIDL, Aave’s GHO, Circle’s EURC, crvUSD, FDUSD and FRAX. The report documents the membership, reserve composition and chain distribution for the top tokens and tracks the next entrants approaching the $1 billion threshold.