Understanding the Stablecoin Landscape
Stablecoins are a foundational component of the digital asset ecosystem and a critical bridge between traditional finance and blockchain-based markets. As regulatory frameworks mature and provide greater clarity for institutional participation, stablecoins are positioned to play an increasingly important role in global finance, payments, and monetary innovation. By overcoming many limitations of legacy financial infrastructure, they offer new capabilities in speed, efficiency, accessibility, and programmability, pointing toward potential future models of money.
This report presents a comprehensive overview of the stablecoin market as it exists today. It examines the business ecosystem surrounding stablecoins, the range of stabilization mechanisms in use, and the principal economic use cases these instruments serve. A forthcoming companion report will focus on legal and regulatory considerations, with particular attention to approaches adopted in major jurisdictions.
The full report is available here.
Contributors
Lead Author
Kevin Werbach (Wharton)
Steering Committee
Austin Campbell (Zero Knowledge Consulting)
Sangita Gazi (Wharton BDAP)
Daniel Hellwig (Kepler Cannon)
Dimitris Psarrakis (Wharton BDAP)
Nikhil Raghuevera (Predicate)
Daniel Resas (_Placehodler)
Expert Working Group
Dan Awrey (Cornell)
Martin Carrica (Anchorage Digital)
Christian Catalini (MIT and Lightspark)
Jacek Czarnecki (Stablewatch)
Amy Davine Kim (PayPal)
Miguel Dinis Lucas (Dinis Lucas & Almeida Santos)
Lindsey Einhaus (Stripe)
Markus Franke (Mento)
Goran Karlic (WHU)
Andrei Kirilenko (Cambridge Judge)
Caitlin Long (Custodia)
Tim Massad (Harvard/Georgetown)
Urszula McCormick (King & Wood)
Monica Ramirez de Arellano (Anchorage Digital)
Jack McDonald (Ripple)
Sumved Sharma (Kepler Cannon)
Ramy Soliman (GMO Trust/Stablecoin Standard)
Jesse Spiro (Tether)
Corey Then (Circle)
Andrea Tosato (Southern Methodist University)
Helen Tui (Binance)
Harald Uhlig (University of Chicago)
Yesha Yadav (Vanderbilt Law School)
Yuliya Guseva (Florida State University College of Law)
Special thanks to StableWatch for stablecoin market charts.