Stablecoins Are Becoming Crypto’s Biggest Business
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| By Marija Matic |
Earlier this week, I showed you which crypto projects have raked in the most cash this year.
Here’s a hint for investors: Projects generating real revenue on-chain is where your investment research should start. Not what’s generating the most buzz on crypto Twitter.
I also said that one category in particular was showing exceptional strength: stablecoins.
The reason is simple. Even though price speculation generates the most activity … simply holding people's dollars and earning yield from them is still crypto's most profitable business by far.
In fact, the two leading stablecoin issuers — Tether and Circle (CRCL) — weren’t even included in the Coingecko data.
Why?
They were too big to fit in the same list as the others.
Stablecoin Growth Outpaces BTC
While attention shifts to the rankings of revenue winning protocols, stablecoins continue to expand tirelessly.
Bitcoin (BTC) sits some 33% off its all-time high and about 26% down year over year.1
In that same time, the stablecoin sector has grown roughly 14.3% according to DeFllama.2
As of August 2026, roughly 292 million on-chain addresses hold a stablecoin balance.3
The regulatory side is taking shape, even without the Clarity Act.
Under the GENIUS Act framework, the Fed proposed stricter reserve and capital requirements,4 including full backing with short-term Treasurys or similarly liquid assets.
That raises the bar for issuance. And it narrows the field to players that can meet those standards.
In fact, we’ve already begun to see capital position around heavyweights.
These are true large-scale deployments, not pilot programs.
Stablecoins Around the World
In Japan, Toshiba and over 20 firms joined the yen stablecoin trial,5 testing payments, remittances, and real-world asset transactions.
In the UK, major banks completed interbank transfers using tokenized pound deposits, showing regulated money moving on-chain between institutions.
Their platform was built by Quant (QNT), which caused the QNT coin to rally 255% in a week.6
On the retail side, flows are picking up as well.
Robinhood’s Earn product, routing into Morpho (MORPHO) stable pools, crossed $500 million in deposits within three months.7
Bottom Line
Stablecoins are getting integrated into payment systems, balance sheets, and yield products at the same time.
And there’s nothing to stop it.
The stablecoins themselves aren’t the direct play here. That role goes to the issuers, as well as the companies and crypto projects building out the infrastructure.
Best,
Marija Matić
1https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin?chart=type%3Dprice%26mode%3Dline%26timeframe%3Dd365
2https://defillama.com/stablecoins
3https://app.rwa.xyz/stablecoins
5https://www.nadanews.com/369410/
6https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/quant?chart=type%3Dprice%26mode%3Dline%26timeframe%3Dd30
