The Rise of Yield Stablecoins

Yield-bearing stablecoins are on the rise.

You can see this in different metrics tracked on our site: the total market capitalization of yield stablecoins, the number of such products launching over the past months, and the total yield paid out to users.

Let’s dive into the data.

Market cap of yield stablecoins

Over less than two years, their total supply has increased 13x, reaching $11.06 billion in Mid June 2025, up from just $666 million in August 2023. It reached an all-time high of $11.3 billion in June and has remained steady ever since:

Compared to payment-first stablecoins (read more about the distinction here: The two types of stablecoins that matter: payments vs yield url to our other article ), yield-first stablecoins are still just a small fraction (4.42%) of the general stablecoin market (as of now, $11.96b compared to the total market cap of $250.42b):

How many yield stablecoins are out there?

Currently, we track more than 45 yield-bearing stablecoins, but there are more than 100 on our list, and adding the new ones keeps us busy. Note that there is no widely accepted definition of a yield stablecoin, so it depends on how you count (see more below). Here is a chart that shows their respective market capitalization:

It’s clear that the number is growing rapidly, and many have recently launched and are getting traction now. Look at the same chart, but with the top 6 (as measured by the current market cap) yield stablecoins excluded, and the timeframe zoomed in to the last 12 months:

Not surprisingly, yield stablecoins issued by Ethena (sUSDe) and the first mover in the space, Sky (sUSDS and sDAI), dominate the market with the mentioned assets constituting 58% ($6.42b) of the total market cap of yield stablecoins:

Yield Paid Out (YPO)

Since mid-2023, yield stablecoins have distributed almost $626 million in yield:

Note that the YPO metric, pioneered by us, is still in its infancy and does not track the multiple interdependencies of yield stablecoins. That said, it provides a valuable snapshot overview of the relevance of yield stablecoins as an asset type.

What are yield stablecoins anyway?

Hint: read up about the difference between yield and payments stablecoins here:

https://app.stablewatch.io/blog/the-two-types-of-stablecoins-that-matter-payments-vs-yield

There is no widely accepted definition of yield stablecoin. As I mentioned in my previous article linked to before, it’s an extremely broad and diverse category of tokenized yield strategies, hedge fund-like structures, simple asset (e.g., Treasury bills) wrappers, interest-bearing lending receipts, multi-strategy yield aggregators, and so on. One could classify them, among others, by:

• Source of yield,
• Yield distribution mechanism,
• Peg maintenance mechanism,
• Backing type,
• Custody arrangements,
• Regulatory status,
• Liquidity profile and redemption access and cadence,
• Governance model,
• Risk concentration,
• Target user segment
• Infrastructure (chain) availability, etc.

Much more work and research is needed to shed more light on this emerging phenomenon. Even if yield stablecoins unbundle into multiple other, clearer categories, looking into the economics, technology, and applicable rules will help their users make better decisions and protect market integrity.