Beled, Visa's Stable Currency Bet. What do smart money see
AuthorCathy, a white sector block chain (ID:hellobtc)
In January 2026, the total market value of the global stable currency market reached an all-time high of $317 billion。
But what is really interesting is not the number per se, but the movement behind it: the USDC of Circle jumped by 73 per cent in 2025, and the USDT of Tether (36 per cent) rose for the second consecutive year. In December 2025, Visa announced the launch of the USDC settlement service in the United States。
when the world ' s largest payment network began to settle in stable currency, when the beled issuing chain managed $10 trillion of assets, when morgan chase settled $3 billion per day through block chains & mdash; and what did these traditional financial giants see
01. Why is the traditional financial giant All in the chain
In March 2024, Belet launched BUIDL— — a monetized money market fund。
THIS IS NOT BELET'S FIRST TEST WATER BLOCK CHAIN, BUT IT'S THE FIRST TIME IT'S SO RADICAL. BUIDL IS ISSUED DIRECTLY IN THE PUBLIC CHAIN, HOLDS UNITED STATES TREASURY BONDS AND CASH, MAINTAINS A NET VALUE OF $1 AND DISTRIBUTES PROCEEDS TO HOLDERS ON A MONTHLY BASIS。
IN MARCH 2025, BUIDL BROKE THE $1 BILLION MARK AND BECAME THE FIRST CHAIN FUND TO REACH THAT SCALE. BY THE END OF 2025, IT HAD EXCEEDED $2 BILLION, THE LARGEST CURRENT MONETIZATION FUND。
What did Belet see
The answer is simple: efficiency and cost。
Traditional money market funds, foreclosures, require T+1 or T+2 settlements, and cross-border transfers are subject to SWIFT, a layer of fees. On the other hand, the chain funds, the transfers are second-grade and cost less than $1, 7× they operate 24 hours a day。
MORE IMPORTANTLY, BUIDL OPENED AN ENTIRELY NEW DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL. IN THE PAST, IT WAS DIFFICULT FOR THE BULK TO BUY MONEY MARKET FUNDS DIRECTLY (USUALLY A THRESHOLD OF OVER $1 MILLION). BUT THROUGH THE BLOCK CHAIN, ANYONE CAN BUY IT。
That's why agreements like Ondo Finance can rise。
Ondo did a simple thing: repackaged Belet ' s BUIDL and other agency-level RWA products into smaller shares for sale to DeFi users. Its OUSG products, which are invested directly in BUIDL, allow ordinary users to benefit from 4-5 per cent of the annualized earnings of the dollar。
The monetization of bonds, the track of the race for money, achieved an explosive growth in 2025, from less than $200 million at the beginning of 2024 to over $7.3 billion at the end of 2025 (RWA.xyz data). Belet's entrance, to some extent, provided a compliant endorsement of the entire RWA track。
WHY USDC INSTEAD OF USDT
Tether (USDT) remains the king of stable currencies, with a market value of $18.67 billion, representing 60 per cent of the market share。
But smart money is voting with feet。
IN 2025, THE MARKET VALUE OF UNDC INCREASED FROM APPROXIMATELY $44 BILLION TO OVER $75 BILLION, AN INCREASE OF 73 PER CENT. IN CONTRAST, USDT GREW BY ONLY 36 PER CENT, FROM APPROXIMATELY $137.0 BILLION TO $18.67 BILLION. THIS IS THE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW THAT USDC IS GROWING FASTER THAN USDT。
Why
The answer is regulation。
On 18 July 2025, the President of the United States signed the GENIUS Act, the first federal legislation in the United States for a stable currency. The Act requires “ the payable stable currency ” there must be a 100% reserve (cash or short-term national debt) and no interest paid to the user。
Circle's USDC fully meets this criterion. Moreover, Circe became the first global issuer to have a European Union-wide MiCA compliance status。
What does that mean
THIS MEANS THAT USDC HAS ACCESS TO THE MAINSTREAM FINANCIAL SYSTEM。
When Stripe chose stable currency payment, it chose USDC. When Visa introduced the stabilization currency settlement, it chose USDC. When Shopify allowed traders to accept stabilization currency, it supported USDC。
For banks, payment companies, compliance exchanges, USDC is &ldquao; white-listed assets &rdquao; and USDT is even under pressure in Europe because of the transparency of reserves。
But Tether didn't panic。
because its main battlefield is not in the united states and europe, but in high-inflation areas — latin america, africa, south-east asia。
In high-inflationary countries such as Argentina, Turkey and Nigeria, USDT has effectively replaced some of the functions of the national currency as de facto & ldquo; shadow & rdquo. The first thing people get paid is to replace it with USDT。
Stable currency markets are dividing two clear paths:
USDC: Compliance route, services to European and American institutions and payment scenes, with investors behind top-level institutions such as Belet, Fidelity, General Catalest
USDT: OFF-SHORE ROUTES, SERVICES TO EMERGING MARKETS AND TRADING SCENES, WITH IRREPLACEABLE POSITION IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH
03, pay the giant's surrender or evolve
In December 2025, Visa announced the launch of the USDC settlement service in the United States。
This is a historic moment。
In the past, the business model of Visa was to charge a fee of 1.5 to 3 per cent per transaction. It now allows partners to settle with the USDC, and the fees are significantly reduced。
It looks like a self-revolution. But in fact, Visa was defensive。
What are the threats Visa saw
the stabilization currency is encroaching on its core business — — cross-border payments。
Traditional cross-border payments take three to five days to arrive through a number of correspondent banks with floor deductions. The stabilization currency was paid for a few seconds at a cost of less than $1。
According to a16z, total stable currency transactions in 2025 amounted to $46 trillion (over Visa), and adjusted payments/settlements to about $9 trillion were growing at a considerable rate and were eroding cross-border/emerging market shares。
Visa's strategy is to join if you can't。
By launching the USDC settlement service, Visa moved herself from “ payment route ” transitioned to “ payment coordinator ” Instead of charging high fees, it earns money by providing value-added services such as compliance, controls and money-laundering。
At the same time, other payment giants are acting:
Stripe: The October 2024 acquisition of Bridge, the US$ 1.1 billion stabilization platform, was one of the largest acquisitions in encryption history
PayPal: Its stable currency, PYUSD, rose by 600% in 2025, from $600 million to $3.6 billion
Western Union remittances: USDPT stabilization currency to be launched on Solana in the first half of 2026
10 European banks: co-founded Qivalis, planned to launch euro stabilization currency in late 2026
It is noteworthy that Solana was selected as the clearing chain by Western Union and Visa ' s first partners, highlighting the advantages of the high performance public chain in the payment scenario — and high volume throughput and low transaction costs。
The bank won't wait to die
The banks did not stand by as a result of the strikes by the non-banking institutions (Circle, Tether) and the payment giants (Stripe, Visa)。
JP Morgan was the most radical。
In early 2026, JP Morgan extended JPM Coin under the umbrella of Kinexys, its block chain sector, to Canton Network for multi-chain interoperability. This is not a stable currency that is publicly traded, but rather a &rdquao; deposit token &rdquao。
Kinexys has a daily average of over $3 billion. It mainly serves multinational enterprises such as Siemens and BMW, and is used to complete financial transfers between global affiliates in seconds。
JP Morgan's logic is clear:
We don't need to compete with you in the public chain. All we have to do is lock our customers in private chains and use block-chain technology to increase efficiency, without giving up control。
In Europe, the Bank of France for the Good went further. Its flagship SG-FORGE issues EuroStabilization EURCV and United States dollar Stabilisation Currency USCV, the first such currency to be issued by a regulated bank in the public chain (the Taifeng) and listed on a compliance exchange such as Bitstamp。
It should be noted, however, that banks such as JPM Coin and USDCV serve mainly corporate customers and are not oriented towards the bulk market. They represent traditional financial institutions that embrace block chain technology but maintain a centrally controlled path。
05. Trends in stable currencies
In summary, the stable currency market in 2026 is showing four clear trends:
RWA TOKENIZATION ACCELERATED
Beled, Ondo, Franklin Templeton is issuing monetization and money market funds. This track achieved an explosive growth in 2025, surged from less than $200 million at the beginning of 2024 to over $7.3 billion, more than 35 times. Traditional financial institutions are introducing the rate of return on United States debt into the world chain through monetization。
The path to compliance is becoming clearer
The growth rate of USDC was 73 per cent, exceeding USDT for two consecutive years. Following the adoption of the GENIUS Act, compliance has become the only option for mainstream institutions. Circle's investors, including top-level institutions such as Belet, Fidelity and others, would be an important milestone in stabilizing the currency sector if its listing plan by 2026 came to fruition。
Reconstruction of payment infrastructure
Tripe's $1.1 billion acquisition of Bridge, Visa's USDC settlement, PayPal PYUSD's 600% increase. Traditional payment giants are integrating stabilization currency into their infrastructure rather than passive defence. High-performance public chains such as Solana are becoming the preferred enterprise-level applications because of their advantages in the payment scene。
Increased market segmentation
stable currency is no longer a proxy for &ldquao; stable &rdquao; it's split into two distinct tracks:
PAYMENT STABILITY CURRENCY (USDC, PYUSD): INTEREST-FREE, BUT COMPLIANT ENDORSEMENT, SERVICE PROVIDER AND VENDOR
Ondo USDY, Ethena USDE: provides 4-5% annualized returns to attract DeFi funds
06, Summary
When Belet started trading on the money chain, when Visa started settling with USDC, when JP Morgan settled $3 billion a day & mdash; & mdash; stabilization currency was no longer &rdquao; encrypted &rdquao; the story, it was a prelude to the entire financial system’s re-establishment。
This is not a game or a concept. In 2025, total fixed currency transactions amounted to $46 trillion and adjusted payments/settlements to $9 trillion. These are real and silver commercial flows。
the entry of traditional financial giants means that the currency is stabilizing from “ the toy of the encryption ring ” to “ the infrastructure of global finance ” for those concerned with the market, it is important not to predict the next hotspot, but to understand the underlying logic of change。
Smart money's on the move。
