Stablecoins’ momentum shows no signs of slowing

A few days ago, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mike McGlone rightfully remarked that Tether's stablecoin USDT capitalisation was not far from flipping Ethereum's. The gap is still $50 billion wide but it's slowly closing and since a crypto selloff usually translates into a stablecoin supply increase, another 20-25% drop from current prices could see Ether fall from its current 2nd position in the digital assets ranking.

Although some voices would undoubtedly scream the death of Ethereum at this point, the story is not quite there, and frankly it wouldn't be. Ethereum is still in a good place, working with 100% uptime and the largest developer community actively building on the network. The story should not even focus on Tether, despite the fact that its growth might be the biggest success story among native crypto companies — although its self-proclaimed $500 billion valuation and lack of a full audit remain under criticism.

No, the story is about stablecoins as an asset class, which can claim the title of the most widely used tool in crypto: already surpassing Visa and Mastercard combined. And now on track to execute over $13T of payments between now and 2030, according to an Accenture report¹, "putting an estimated $13 billion in payment fees at risk [for the banks]," the report insists. Not a minor figure.

The dollarisation does not stop

Even within the ECB, some voices are calling for a more open mind toward stablecoins: "I also see merit in euro-denominated stablecoins. They can be used for cross-border payments by individuals and firms at low cost," Governing Council member Joachim Nagel recently said at an event at the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany, Bloomberg reported². This comes at a moment when the ECB confirms it is advancing with its CBDC project — one that no one really wants, especially the banks, which see it as a threat to their own retail deposits.

One thing is certain: stablecoins are reshaping the way payments are done. It's anecdotal, but during a visit to a crypto desk in Hong Kong last week, when we asked whether customers were buying Bitcoin, the manager brushed our question off: "People mostly buy USDT," without elaborating on their reasons. It did seem, though, that exposure to the US dollar — whether for remittance, to hedge against a potential RMB takeover, or to access other on-chain products — holds real appeal there.

In this context, Mike McGlone's prediction that USDT could overtake Bitcoin in capitalisation is not much of a stretch. We disagree that it will happen because of a Bitcoin crash, but as crypto rails are increasingly adopted, the issuance of these crypto-dollars will likely keep pace. The question now is whether the dollar will face serious competition in this use case: so far, it still accounts for 99% of stablecoin pegging. If Europe and other jurisdictions press ahead with their digital currency projects while overlooking on-chain demand, the dollar may well end up being used in every corner of the globe.

¹Accenture Top Banking Trends 2026: Unconstrained Banking

²ECB’s Nagel Touts Euro-Denominated Stablecoins for Payments, Bloomberg, 16/02/2026