In the 2025 cryptocurrency market, who is making a fortune? The answer is not the trading platforms you imagined, nor the hot AI track, but rather — stablecoin issuers.
📊 Core Data Review: Tether's Absolute Dominance
According to the latest 2025 annual report released by CoinGecko Research, the revenue landscape of cryptocurrency protocols presents an astonishing '80/20 rule':
• Tether Takes the Lead: In 2025, Tether's revenue is approximately $5.2 billion, contributing 41.9% of the total profit generated by 168 revenue-generating protocols in the entire industry.
• Stablecoin Empire: Among the top ten revenue protocols, only 4 stablecoin entities contributed 65.7% (approximately $8.3 billion) of the revenue.
• Tron’s comeback: If public chain revenue is considered, Tron ranks second with $3.5 billion. Its secret is simple: it is the preferred network for $USDT trading globally, winning big with 'tolls'.
💡 Why can't trading protocols compete with stablecoins?
• Environmental dependency: Reports indicate that the income of trading protocols like UniSwap is highly dependent on market conditions, performing strongly during the first quarter's festivities, but income quickly falls back as market conditions weaken.
• Essential demand attributes: Regardless of bull or bear markets, users need stablecoins. Issuers of stablecoins earn interest through massive US Treasury reserves, and this 'laying down to earn' model almost ignores market fluctuations.
🧠 Insights for our investment:
1. RWA is real money: Stablecoins are essentially the earliest application of RWA (real-world assets). The success of Tether proves how profitable it is to bring traditional financial interest onto the blockchain.
2. Focus on the Tron ecosystem: As long as USDT remains the preferred choice for payments and transfers, Tron ($TRX) will have a hard time shaking off its status as infrastructure.
3. Looking for the next growth point: In the first quarter of 2026, as more compliant RWA assets (like aircraft engines, real estate loans) are tokenized, the next 'rental' track after stablecoins is worth laying out.
What do you think about Tether's near-monopoly profitability? Do you think Ethereum can regain the 'toll' market taken by Tron through Layer 2 in 2026? 👇
#Tether #Tron #RWA #内容挖矿 #CoinGecko