Stablecoin Market Surges 76% Led by USDT and USDC, Traditional Finance Lags

Despite the significant surge in the fiat-backed stablecoin market, which grew by over 76% from 2024 to 2025, adding more than $97 billion in value to reach a record $224.9 billion, not all stablecoins benefited equally from this boom. The majority of this growth was driven by USDT and USDC, which together account for 93.5% of the circulating supply. New entrants like USDtb by Ethena and USD0 by Usual also made strong debuts. However, traditional finance-backed stablecoins, such as PayPal’s PYUSD and SocGen’s EURCV, struggled to gain meaningful traction despite their brand recognition and regulatory alignment. These coins saw limited adoption and utility in a market dominated by crypto-native incumbents, highlighting the challenges that traditional finance institutions face in competing with established decentralized players.

The underperformance of PYUSD and EURCV underscores the difficulties that traditional finance institutions encounter when trying to enter the stablecoin market. Despite their advantages in brand recognition and regulatory compliance, these stablecoins have not been able to capture a significant share of the market. This situation points to the dominance of crypto-native stablecoins, which have already established a strong foothold and user base. The limited adoption of PYUSD and EURCV suggests that traditional finance institutions may need to rethink their strategies to compete effectively in this rapidly evolving market.

Meanwhile, commodity-backed tokens experienced a 67.8% market cap increase during the same period, adding $773.9 million to reach a record $1.9 billion. This growth mirrored the rally in gold prices, as investors sought the metal as a hedge against geopolitical and macroeconomic risks. However, commodity-backed tokens remain a minor player, comprising just 0.8% of the total value of fiat-backed stablecoins. The surge in market value did not coincide with an increase in token issuance, indicating that the demand for tokenized commodities stayed relatively flat and was largely influenced by asset appreciation rather than increased adoption or new users entering the space.

Tether Gold (XAUT) and PAX Gold (PAXG) continue to lead the commodity-backed token category, collectively making up 84% of the category’s total market cap. This leadership position highlights the dominance of these two tokens in the commodity-backed stablecoin market. The relatively flat demand for tokenized commodities suggests that the growth in this segment is primarily driven by asset appreciation rather than increased adoption.

Beyond stablecoins and tokenized commodities, another corner of the real-world asset space saw even more explosive growth. In April 2025, the tokenized treasury market hit an all-time high, with a total market cap of $5.6 billion. This represents a 544.8% increase from the previous year, making it the strongest-performing real-world asset class during the period. A major catalyst for this growth occurred in March 2025, when the US introduced sweeping trade tariffs, which fueled investor flight to safer assets. Between March and April alone, tokenized treasuries added $2.3 billion in value, up 67.1%. BlackRock’s BUIDL token, launched in July 2024, quickly became the category leader and accounted for 44% of the total market by April.

The product saw explosive growth in 2025, as it rose by more than 372% to end April with $2.5 billion in tokenized treasuries. While these digital assets are now issued across several blockchain networks, Ethereum remains dominant, with Stellar in second place. Despite rapid expansion, overall user participation is still relatively narrow, as tokenized treasuries are distributed across just over 11,000 individual on-chain addresses. This limited user participation suggests that the growth in the tokenized treasury market is driven by a small but active group of investors.