Original title: Stablecoin Update May 2025
Original source: Artemis
Original translation: Bitpush
In the crypto market, stablecoins are no longer just 'stable' — they are quietly helping you earn money. From US Treasury yields to perpetual contract arbitrage, yield-bearing stablecoins are becoming a new income engine for crypto investors. Currently, there are dozens of related projects with a market cap exceeding 20 million USD, totaling over 10 billion USD in value. This article will break down the earnings sources of mainstream yield-bearing stablecoins and review the most representative projects in the market to see who is really helping you 'make money with money.'
What are yield-bearing stablecoins?
Unlike regular stablecoins (like USDT or USDC) that serve merely as value storage tools, yield-bearing stablecoins allow users to earn passive income during the holding period. Their core value lies in providing additional earnings to holders through underlying strategies while maintaining the stablecoin's price peg.
How are earnings generated?
Earnings sources of interest-bearing stablecoins are diverse and can be summarized into the following categories:
· Real-World Asset (RWA) Investment: Protocol invests funds in low-risk assets in the real world, such as US Treasuries (T-bills), money market funds, or corporate bonds, returning the earnings from these investments to token holders.
· DeFi strategies: Protocols deposit stablecoins into decentralized finance (DeFi) liquidity pools, engage in liquidity mining (farming), or adopt 'delta-neutral' strategies to extract earnings from market inefficiencies.
· Lending: Deposits are lent to borrowers, and the interest paid by borrowers becomes the earnings for the holders.
· Debt supported: The protocol allows users to lock crypto assets as collateral and lend stablecoins. Earnings mainly come from stability fees or interest generated from non-stablecoin collateral.
· Mixed sources: Earnings come from a combination of tokenized RWAs, DeFi protocols, centralized finance (CeFi) platforms, etc., achieving diversified returns.
Overview of the yield-bearing stablecoin market landscape (projects with total supply of around 20 million USD and above)
The following lists some currently mainstream yield-bearing stablecoin projects, categorized according to their primary earnings generation strategies. Please note that the data represents total supply, and this list mainly covers yield-bearing stablecoins with total supply of 20 million USD or more.
1. RWA supported type (mainly through US Treasuries, corporate bonds, or commercial paper, etc.)
These stablecoins generate returns by investing funds in low-risk, income-generating assets in the real world.
· Ethena Labs (USDtb – 1.3 billion USD): Supported by BlackRock's BUIDL fund.
· Usual (USD0 – 619 million USD): Liquidity deposit tokens of the Usual protocol, backed 1:1 by ultra-short-term RWAs (especially aggregated US Treasury tokens).
· BUIDL (570 million USD): BlackRock's tokenized fund, holding US Treasuries and cash equivalents.
· Ondo Finance (USDY – 560 million USD): Fully backed by US Treasuries.
· OpenEden (USDO – 280 million USD): Earnings come from reserves backed by US Treasuries and repurchase agreements.
· Anzen (USDz – 122.8 million USD): Fully supported by a diversified tokenized RWA portfolio, primarily including private credit assets.
· Noble (USDN – 106.9 million USD): Composable interest-bearing stablecoin, supported by 103% US Treasuries, utilizing M0 infrastructure.
· Lift Dollar (USDL – 94 million USD): Issued by Paxos, fully supported by US Treasuries and cash equivalents, and automatically compounds daily.
· Agora (AUSD – 89 million USD): Backed by Agora reserves, including US dollars and cash equivalents like overnight reverse repos and short-term US Treasuries.
· Cygnus (cgUSD – 70.9 million USD): Supported by short-term Treasuries, operating as a rebase type ERC-20 token on the Base chain, automatically adjusting balances daily to reflect earnings.
· Frax (frxUSD – 62.9 million USD): Upgraded from the stablecoin FRAX from Frax Finance, it is a multi-chain stablecoin supported by BlackRock's BUIDL and Superstate.
2. Basis trading/arbitrage strategy type
These stablecoins earn profits through market-neutral strategies, such as perpetual contract funding rate arbitrage, cross-exchange arbitrage, etc.
· Ethena Labs (USDe – 6 billion USD): Supported by a diversified asset pool, maintaining its peg through spot collateral delta hedging.
· Stables Labs (USDX – 671 million USD): Generates profits through delta-neutral arbitrage strategies among various cryptocurrencies.
· Falcon Stable (USDf – 573 million USD): Supported by a cryptocurrency portfolio, generating earnings through Falcon's market-neutral strategies (funding rate arbitrage, cross-exchange trading, native staking, and liquidity provision).
· Resolv Labs (USR – 216 million USD): Fully supported by an ETH collateral pool, with ETH price risk hedged through perpetual futures, assets managed by off-chain custody.
· Elixir (deUSD – 172 million USD): Uses stETH and sDAI as collateral, creating delta-neutral positions by shorting ETH and capturing positive funding rates.
· Aster (USDF – 110 million USD): Supported by crypto assets and corresponding short futures on AsterDEX.
· Nultipli.fi (xUSD/xUSDT – 65 million USD): Earns profits through market-neutral arbitrage on centralized exchanges (CEXs), including contango arbitrage and funding rate arbitrage.
· YieldFi (yUSD – 23 million USD): Supported by USDC and other stablecoins, earnings come from delta-neutral strategies, lending platforms, and yield trading protocols.
· Hermetica (USDh – 5.5 million USD): Supported by delta-hedged Bitcoin, earning funding fees by shorting perpetual futures on major centralized exchanges.
3. Lending/debt supported type
These stablecoins generate returns by lending deposits, collecting interest, or through stability fees and liquidation profits from collateralized debt positions (CDPs).
· Sky (DAI – 5.3 billion USD): Based on CDP (Collateralized Debt Position). Minted by collateralizing ETH (LSTs), BTC LSTs, and sUSDS on @sparkdotfi. USDS is an upgraded version of DAI, designed to earn yields through Sky Savings Rate and SKY rewards.
· Curve Finance (crvUSD – 840 million USD): Over-collateralized stablecoin, supported by ETH and managed through LLAMMA, maintaining its peg through Curve's liquidity pools and DeFi integrations.
· Syrup (syrupUSDC – 631 million USD): Supported by fixed-rate collateral loans provided to crypto institutions, with earnings managed by @maplefinance's credit underwriting and lending infrastructure.
· MIM_Spell (MIM – 241 million USD): Over-collateralized stablecoin minted by locking interest-bearing cryptocurrencies into Cauldrons, with earnings coming from interest and liquidation fees.
· Aave (GHO – 251 million USD): Minted through collateral provided in the Aave v3 lending market.
· Inverse (DOLA – 200 million USD): Debt-supported stablecoin minted through collateralized lending on FiRM, with earnings generated through staking in sDOLA, which earns from lending income.
· Level (lvlUSD – 184 million USD): Supported by USDC or USDT deposited in DeFi lending protocols (like Aave) to generate earnings.
· Beraborrow (NECT – 169 million USD): Berachain native CDP stablecoin, supported by iBGT. Earnings generated through liquidity stability pools, liquidation profits, and leveraged enhancements from PoL incentives.
· Avalon Labs (USDa – 193 million USD): Full-chain stablecoin minted using assets like BTC through the CeDeFi CDP model, providing fixed-rate lending and generating earnings through staking in the Avalon vault.
· Liquity Protocol (BOLD – 95 million USD): Supported by over-collateralized ETH (LSTs), generating sustainable earnings through interest payments from borrowers and ETH liquidation profits obtained through its Stability Pools.
· Lista Dao (lisUSD – 62.9 million USD): Over-collateralized stablecoin on BNB Chain, minted by using BNB, ETH (LSTs), and stablecoins as collateral in CDPs.
· f(x) Protocol (fxUSD – 65 million USD): Minted through leveraged xPOSITIONS supported by stETH or WBTC, with earnings coming from stETH staking, opening fees, and stability pool incentives.
· Bucket Protocol (BUCK – 72 million USD): Over-collateralized CDP-supported stablecoin based on @SuiNetwork, minted by collateralizing SUI.
· Felix (feUSD – 71 million USD): Liquity fork CDP on @HyperliquidX. feUSD is an over-collateralized CDP stablecoin minted using HYPE or UBTC as collateral.
· Superform Labs (superUSDC – 51 million USD): A USDC-backed vault that automatically rebalances on Ethereum and Base to top lending protocols (Aave, Fluid, Morpho, Euler), supported by Yearn v3.
· Reserve (USD3 – 49 million USD): Backed 1:1 by a basket of blue-chip interest-bearing tokens (pyUSD, sDAI, and cUSDC).
4. Mixed revenue source type (combining DeFi, traditional finance, and centralized finance earnings) These stablecoins diversify risks and optimize returns by combining various strategies.
· Reservoir (rUSD – 230.5 million USD): Over-collateralized stablecoin, supported by a combination of RWA and dollar-based capital allocators and lending vaults.
· Coinshift (csUSDL – 126.6 million USD): Supported by T-Bills and DeFi lending through Morpho, providing regulated low-risk returns through a treasury curated by @SteakhouseFi.
· Midas (mEGDE, mTBILL, mMEV, mBASIS, mRe7YIELD – 110 million USD): A compliant institutional-grade stablecoin strategy. LYT represents claims on actively managed yield-bearing RWAs and DeFi strategies.
· Upshift (upUSDC – 32.8 million USD): Yield-bearing and partially supported by lending strategies, but earnings also come from LP (liquidity provision) and staking.
· Perena (USD*- 19.9 million USD): Solana native interest-bearing stablecoin, core to Perena AMM, earning through swap fees and IBT-driven liquidity pools.
Summary
The above highlights interest-bearing stablecoins with a total supply of around 20 million USD or more, but remember that all yield-bearing stablecoins come with risks. Earnings are not without risk; they may face smart contract risk, protocol risk, market risk, or collateral risk, etc.
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