Why Centralized Stablecoins Still Dominate the Market
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Despite years of innovation, centralized stablecoins like Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC still control over 83% of the stablecoin market. Their dominance grew after the collapse of Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin in 2022, which erased roughly $60 billion and stalled decentralized experimentation.
While projects like Ethena’s USDe and Dai remain important in DeFi, their market caps are far smaller and they haven’t seriously challenged centralized leaders. The gap highlights just how difficult it is to build decentralized stablecoins that are both trusted and scalable.