Summary: This article aims to analyze the structural investment opportunities brought by the expansion of the stablecoin market to the entire crypto ecosystem from the perspective of crypto practitioners. The report will focus on token varieties that directly benefit, key ecological infrastructure, and emerging RWA (Real World Assets) tracks, and will outline representative projects, core logic, and potential risks in various fields for investors, aiming to provide a practical investment navigation map.

1. Introduction

Recently, stablecoins have become a central topic and important infrastructure in the crypto market. Their market capitalization growth, regulatory compliance processes (such as those in the U.S. (GENIUS Act) and Hong Kong (Stablecoin Regulations)), and the continuous expansion of application scenarios have not only consolidated their position in trading, payments, and settlements but also brought rich derivative opportunities to the entire crypto track. As practitioners, we observe that capital flows, information flows, and innovative applications are intensively developing around stablecoins. This report will penetrate the phenomena and directly analyze which digital currency varieties are likely to capture value in this trend.

2. Investment Opportunities Directly Related to Stablecoins

The development of stablecoins directly benefits their issuers and related governance ecosystems.

1. Mainstream Compliant Stablecoins:

• Representative Variety: USDC (issued by Circle)

• Core Logic: In the trend of strong regulation and transparency, compliant stablecoins will become the main channel for institutional funds entering the crypto world. Holding stablecoins like USDC is not for price speculation, but as a 'cash' tool in the crypto world, obtaining stable returns (i.e., 'yielding') through participating in DeFi lending, liquidity mining, and other strategies.

• Risk Warning: Centralized regulatory risks are prominent, and the quality of the underlying reserve assets highly depends on the traditional financial system (e.g., previously affected by the Silicon Valley Bank incident).

2. Decentralized Stablecoins:

• Representative Variety: DAI (issued by MakerDAO)

• Core Logic: Generated using an over-collateralization model of crypto assets, it does not directly rely on a single fiat currency reserve, making it more resistant to censorship and more native to crypto. As it introduces RWA as collateral, its business model and revenue sources become more diversified.

• Risk Warning: Its stability relies on the price stability of the underlying collateral (e.g., ETH), and the risk of cascading liquidations under extreme market conditions is a systemic challenge.

3. Key Ecological Infrastructure Token Investment Opportunities

The issuance, circulation, and application of stablecoins require robust underlying infrastructure support, and the tokens of these infrastructures will capture the value of ecological growth.

1. Public Chains and Layer 2 Solutions:

• Representative Varieties: ETH (Ethereum), SOL (Solana), ARB (Arbitrum), OP (Optimism)

• Core Logic: Stablecoins are the most important assets and sources of liquidity on public chains. The vast majority of stablecoin activities and DeFi protocols are concentrated on Ethereum, and its network effect is hard to shake. High-performance public chains (like Solana) and Layer 2 solutions, due to their fast transaction speeds and low costs, are more suitable for stablecoin payments and high-frequency trading scenarios, and are expected to attract incremental migration and issuance.

• Risk Warning: The high gas fees on the Ethereum mainnet may drive users to competitive chains; the competition in the Layer 2 track is fierce, with rapid technological iterations, and ecological stickiness is key to success.

2. DeFi Protocol Tokens:

• Decentralized Exchanges (DEX):

o Representative Variety: UNI (Uniswap)

o Core Logic: Stablecoins are the main trading pairs on DEXs, and the growth in trading volume directly drives protocol fee income, potentially benefiting governance token holders.

• Lending Protocols:

o Representative Varieties: AAVE, COMP (Compound)

o Core Logic: Stablecoins are the core assets of the lending market, and their expansion directly enlarges the 'pie' of the lending market, creating more revenue for protocols.

• Risk Warning: DeFi protocols face risks from smart contract vulnerabilities; the potential impact of regulatory policies on decentralized protocols has uncertainties.

4. Emerging Tracks: Tokenization Opportunities for RWA (Real World Assets)

RWA is a key bridge for bringing traditional financial assets onto the chain, complementing the development of stablecoins.

1. Asset Tokenization Protocols:

• Representative Varieties: ONDO (Ondo Finance), TRU (TrueFi)

• Core Logic: New regulations require stablecoin reserve assets to be cash or short-term government bonds, creating a huge on-chain demand for tokenized U.S. Treasuries. Projects like ONDO provide products for tokenizing U.S. Treasuries, offering compliant yielding assets for stablecoin issuers and regular users. TrueFi explores asset tokenization in areas like private credit.

• Risk Warning: The regulatory compliance threshold in this track is extremely high, and volatility in traditional financial markets directly transmits to the crypto world.

5. Other Potential Opportunities

• Payment and Remittance Solutions: Using stablecoins for low-cost, fast cross-border payments has become a real demand (e.g., some merchants in African countries have used USDT for transactions). Projects with practical applications and unique advantages in this field should be noted.

• Oracle Services:

o Representative Variety: LINK (Chainlink)

o Core Logic: The cross-chain pricing, redemption of stablecoins, and pricing of RWA assets all heavily rely on reliable decentralized oracles to provide accurate external data.

o Risk Warning: The accuracy of oracle data is critical, and there are many competing projects.

6. Risk Summary and Investment Recommendations

Investment decisions must be based on a thorough understanding of risks:

1. Regulatory Policy Risks: The regulatory framework for stablecoins and crypto assets worldwide is still evolving, representing the greatest source of uncertainty.

2. Smart Contract Risks: Investing in any DeFi protocol tokens requires confronting the potential vulnerability risks of their underlying smart contracts.

3. De-pegging and Systemic Risks: Stablecoins are not absolutely safe, and under extreme market conditions, de-pegging may occur, which will impact related ecological projects.

4. Market Volatility Risks: The high volatility of the crypto market itself means that all token assets (including ETH, SOL, etc.) may experience significant price pullbacks.

Investment Recommendations:

• Conservative Strategy: Allocate mainstream compliant stablecoins (USDC) and earn through compliant channels, while holding core infrastructure assets like Ethereum (ETH) for the long term.

• Aggressive Strategy: Conduct in-depth research and moderately allocate DeFi blue-chip tokens (like UNI, AAVE), leading RWA track players (like ONDO), and high-performance public chains (like SOL).

• Core Principles: Keep Learning, DYOR - Do Your Own Research. Always focus on the fundamentals of the project, team capabilities, and technical implementation, rather than merely chasing market trends.

7. Conclusion

The development of stablecoins is fundamentally reshaping the landscape of the crypto market, and the investment opportunities it brings are multi-layered and structural. From the direct yield of stablecoins to the public chains and Layer 2s that support their operation, to the DeFi and RWA protocols that empower their applications, value capture points are spread across the entire industry chain. For investors, the key is to identify those specific digital asset varieties with strong fundamentals that can continuously benefit from this irreversible trend and construct an investment portfolio that matches their risk preferences.