Move Over Bitcoin: Stablecoins Become the Real Apex Predators of Digital Finance
At last week’s Bitcoin Alpha event in Santa Monica, attendees met the star of the show — a towering shark dubbed “Bitcoinius Maximus, the Apex Predator of Money.” But every apex predator has a rival species. In crypto, that’s the fast-evolving class of stablecoins — call them Stablecoinius Rex.
Sure Ethereum (Crypto: ETH) is the No. 2 crypto in terms of market cap after Bitcoin (Crypto: BTC), but the major stablecoins, led by Tether (USDT) have a combined market cap nearly the size of Ethereum’s at around $314 billion, hitting a record in September.
“Alongside Bitcoin’s role as a store-of-value asset, stablecoins have become one of crypto’s most widely used applications: digital tokens on public blockchains that target parity with fiat currencies,” said Iliya Kalchev, an analyst at Nexo Dispatch. Nexo Dispatch is Nexo’s weekly publication specializing in the cryptocurrency market and digital asset wealth management.
The Backbone of the Blockchain Economy
Stablecoins underpin crypto trading, settling over $46 trillion in transactions during 2025 — a volume that now rivals Visa and PayPal, venture-capital firm a16z crypto noted in its State of Crypto 2025 report released Oct. 22. The report calls stablecoins “the backbone of the on-chain economy.”
Kalchev said the comparison to Visa and PayPal highlights how quickly blockchain payments have scaled.
“In developed markets, they’re emerging as programmable, always-on payment rails that outperform legacy systems in speed and efficiency. In emerging markets and high-inflation economies, stablecoins serve as a digital proxy for stable fiat currencies,” he said. “Stablecoins are offering those households and businesses a reliable store of value, dollar exposure, and frictionless access to global liquidity. This dual function as a store of stability and medium of exchange gives stablecoins a place next to Bitcoin in shaping the future of digital money.”
Recent legislation helped this corner of the crypto market.
Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong said last week that the House’s crypto market bill – the CLARITY Act – is in the …
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