Stablecoins in the process of expanding policies are no longer a purely "Web3" story.

Author: imToken

Early this morning Beijing time, the US House of Representatives passed three cryptocurrency-related bills: the CLARITY Act, the GENIUS Act, and the Anti-State CBDC Surveillance Act. Among them, the GENIUS Act is expected to be signed into law by Trump on Friday local time.

This not only marks the establishment of the first national regulatory framework for stablecoins in the United States but also sends a clear signal that stablecoins are moving out of the gray area and towards the edge of the mainstream financial system. Meanwhile, major financial centers like Hong Kong, China, and the European Union are also accelerating their moves, and the global stablecoin landscape is undergoing a reshaping.

Looking back at the past few months, we will see that stablecoins have almost overnight transitioned from a financial variable under regulatory oversight to a newly recognized infrastructure. What exactly happened behind this, who is driving stablecoins to become the new main character on the global financial stage? How should we reasonably understand this wave of enthusiasm?

From the Web3 narrative to National Strategy, Who is Driving?

Since the beginning of the year, stablecoins have certainly become the focus of global financial policy and discourse.

However, this wave of enthusiasm is not coincidental, nor is it the product of natural technological evolution, but rather a structural shift driven by policy forces, especially the policy pivot during the Trump era, which has played the role of a "catfish" causing significant disruption.

On one hand, Trump has always been clear in opposing Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), clearly supporting a market-driven digital dollar path. On the other hand, from supporting the USD1 of family businesses to promoting and about to sign the GENIUS Act, Trump is also fulfilling his campaign promise to ease the cryptocurrency market.

These signals have directly forced global regulators to reconsider stablecoins. Therefore, in just a few months, stablecoins have risen from a marginal topic within the cryptocurrency circle to a major discussion point at the national strategy level. Among them, besides Hong Kong, China has set a timeline for Stablecoin Regulation, and major global economies have begun to uniformly review and accelerate the establishment of a clear compliance framework for stablecoins:

The EU's Cryptocurrency Asset Market Regulation (MiCA), which will take effect in 2024, has comprehensively covered compliance oversight of cryptocurrency assets and conducted detailed classifications of stablecoins;

The ruling party of newly elected South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has proposed the Basic Law on Digital Assets, which clearly stipulates that as long as a South Korean company has at least 500 million won (about $370,000) in capital and ensures refunds through a reserve fund, they can issue stablecoins;

Objectively speaking, the passing of the GENIUS Act is not only the United States' easing towards stablecoins but also a clear choice for the path of the digital dollar - abandoning Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and supporting regulated privately issued dollar stablecoins.

It can be predicted that this stance of the United States will become a reference model for regulatory design in other countries, pushing stablecoins into the universal framework of global financial policy discussions.

The Path of Stablecoin is Changing

In recent years, the stablecoin market landscape has long been dominated by Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC), representing two paths of "circulation efficiency" and "compliance transparency":

USDT focuses on circulation and multi-platform order matching efficiency, dominating exchanges and gray payment networks;

USDC emphasizes compliance and asset transparency, delving into regulation-friendly scenarios and institutional customer systems;

In terms of overall scale, stablecoins have maintained a growth trend since 2025 - according to CoinGecko data, as of July 18, the total market value of stablecoins is approximately $262 billion, an increase of over 20% since the beginning of the year.

This means that during the recovery process of the cryptocurrency market, stablecoins remain the core "liquidity entry point." The dominance of USDT and USDC remains solid - the total market value of USDT exceeds $160 billion, accounting for more than 60%; USDC remains at around $65 billion, accounting for about 25%, with their combined market share nearly 90%.

Starting in 2024, more and more Web2 financial businesses and traditional capital forces will begin to participate in the market, building on-chain payment tools with stablecoins. For example, PayPal's PYUSD and USD1, supported by emerging political capital, are two representative signals:

PYUSD (PayPal USD) was launched by payment giant PayPal, naturally possessing cross-border payment scenarios and a global merchant network. USD1 aims for compliant on-chain deposits and withdrawals and cross-border business, receiving support from political and business resources backed by Trump, cutting into business payment scenarios.

It can be said that under the support of institutions and national forces, these emerging stablecoin projects are driving the function of stablecoins to evolve from a "Web3 liquidity tool" into a value bridge connecting Web3 and the real economic system. Their use cases are gradually penetrating from exchanges and wallets to supply chain finance, cross-border trade, payments for freelancers, OTC scenarios, and various other applications.

Behind the Boom, What Are the Real Challenges for Stablecoins?

However, objectively speaking, while the GENIUS Act provides institutional recognition for stablecoins, it also brings many more compliance requirements, setting clearer rule boundaries for their development.

For example, issuers need to accept KYC/AML management, funds must have custodial separation and third-party audits, and there may be issuance limits or use restrictions in extreme cases. This means that stablecoins have gained legal identity but have also officially entered the "regulated currency role."

From this perspective, whether stablecoins can break the application limits of the Web3 label is key to achieving significant growth. After all, the greatest growth potential for stablecoins lies not within the Crypto inner circle, but in the real Web2 economy and the broader global economy.

Just as the main growth of USDT and USDC no longer comes from on-chain user interactions, but is distributed among small and medium enterprises and individual merchants with strong cross-border payment needs, emerging markets and underdeveloped financial regions unable to access the SWIFT network, residents of inflationary countries wishing to escape local currency volatility, content creators and freelancers unable to use PayPal or Stripe, and many other parties.

In other words, its greatest future growth lies not in Web3, but in Web2 - the killer application of stablecoins is not the "next DeFi protocol", but the "replacement for traditional dollar accounts".

This means that once stablecoins become the fundamental medium of the global digital dollar, they will inevitably touch sensitive nerves such as monetary sovereignty, financial sanctions, and geopolitical order.