This was a defining year for stablecoins, with the signing of the GENIUS Act, a high-flying IPO for Circle, and a handful of tokens outpacing the rest.
Since the start of January, the overall U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin supply has increased by more than $100 billion, to $314 billion total. But that doesn’t mean all boats have risen at the same rate.
To measure stablecoin performance, Decrypt calculated velocity using historical data from crypto price aggregator CoinGecko from January through December 15. Velocity divides total volume by average supply, resulting in a calculation of how many times each coin has, on average, changed hands.
As former Commodities and Futures Trading Commission Chairman Timothy Massad explained to Decrypt, measuring velocity beats rankings that rely only on total supply.
“Stablecoins can be very useful without there being a large market cap,” he said. “In other words, it’s really the velocity, the transaction use, and they can circulate very quickly even if the amount outstanding is not that great.”
Tether (USDT)
Tether tops the list with a velocity of 166 because it’s long been a workhorse for global crypto trading. It can’t claim the crown as the first-ever stablecoin — that belongs to BitUSD. But it launched the same year, in 2014, and became the first widely used one.
Tether boasts a market capitalization of $186 billion after increasing 35% since the start of the year, according to CoinGecko data. The bulk of Tether tokens get traded on Ethereum (46.3%) and Tron (41.4%), according to DeFi Llama data.
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Tether began the year by relocating to Bitcoin-friendly El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele declared BTC legal tender in 2021. There have been a few bumps, though. In March, Binance said it would delist USDT for European Union users to stay compliant with MiCA regulations, which require stablecoin issuers to be licensed.
But that’s not stopped the company from turning a hefty profit. So far in 2025, Tether has seen $10 billion in profit in the first three quarters of the year, the company said in October.
Ripple USD (RLUSD)
Ripple Labs’ stablecoin, RLUSD, swiped the second spot with a velocity of 71. That means, on average, every RLUSD token has changed hands 71 times since the start of the year.
In most stablecoin lineups, Circle’s USDC would hold this spot because its $78 billion market capitalization trumps that of RLUSD’s $1.3 billion. But as Massad pointed out, stablecoin performance has more to do with being able to move money efficiently than its total supply.
