Most stablecoin coverage stops at the marketing page.
We picked the coins apart instead. The redemption mechanics behind USDT, USDC, DAI and FDUSD. What we actually paid to bridge between Ethereum, Tron, Solana and BNB Chain. How the BDO and Deloitte attestation letters differ from a real audit. What MiCA changed for European holders in 2026. Read it, decide for yourself.
Three kinds of reader come here
Most arrivals are one of three people. Pick yours and go to the right page — no need to read the whole site.
You can't decide between USDT and USDC
Reserves, regulator, liquidity, six dimensions side by side. By the last page you know where your dollars sit safer.
Open the comparison Type B · First time hearing the wordStablecoin, in 10 minutes, no jargon
Four categories of stablecoin, why Luna failed, where the dollar peg actually comes from. Plain prose.
Open the primer Type C · Already holding, still nervous20 questions a new holder asks
From "is my USDT safe overnight" to "do I owe tax if I never converted to dollars" — answered with sources.
Open the FAQMost English stablecoin coverage is written by people who either work for an issuer or trade tokens for a living. We wanted a third option: read the attestations cover to cover, pay real bridge fees, read the SEC and ESMA filings, then write what we found. If we are wrong about a number, it goes on the corrections page with the date and what it should say.
The questions we keep coming back to
Three long reads. The first is the comparison piece most people want. The second is for readers new to the category. The third is the FAQ we wished existed when we started.
USDT vs USDC, the 2026 report
Six dimensions side by side. The SVB weekend reconstructed minute by minute. The NYAG settlement read in plain English. Where each one breaks if held for thirty days, ninety days, three years.
What is a stablecoin, in ten minutes
Four types: fiat-backed, crypto-backed, algorithmic, commodity-backed. The Luna collapse used as the cautionary tale. Honest about where the peg can fail.
Twenty questions a new holder actually asks
Safety, custody, tax, on-ramps, off-ramps, what happens during a depeg. Each answer under five hundred words. Sources at the foot of every question.
Six stablecoins, current parameters
Figures pulled in May 2026 from CoinGecko market data plus each issuer's published attestation. USDT sits around 150 billion in supply. DAI doubled after the August 2024 USDS rebrand. FDUSD shrank after Binance rebalanced its trading pairs. PYUSD has grown by roughly 3.5x in eighteen months on PayPal's distribution.
| Coin | Supply | Reserve type | Regulator | 90-day low | Transparency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDT Tether Limited |
~150B | T-bills, cash, gold | BVI / SV / El Salvador | 0.9982 | |
| USDC Circle Internet |
~60B | T-bills, bank deposits | NY DFS | 0.9971 | |
| DAI / USDS MakerDAO · Sky |
~15B | USDC, RWA, ETH | Decentralised (Sky protocol) | 0.9962 | |
| FDUSD First Digital Trust |
~0.37B | T-bills, cash | Hong Kong HKMA | 0.9956 | |
| TUSD Techteryx |
~0.49B | Not fully disclosed | BVI | 0.9621 | |
| PYUSD Paxos / PayPal |
~3.5B | T-bills, cash | NY DFS | 0.9988 |
Sources: Tether quarterly attestation, Circle monthly attestation, MakerDAO Stats, First Digital Trust Hong Kong filing, Techteryx public disclosure, Paxos monthly report. The full scoring logic sits in the USDT vs USDC report.
Ten events that changed the stablecoin map, 2021–2026
Each entry links to the longer piece where we walk through the document trail.
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2021 · 02
NYAG settles with Bitfinex and Tether
New York Attorney General Letitia James announces an 18.5 million dollar settlement, banning Tether from trading with New York residents. The order forced the first detailed reserve breakdown the public ever saw from Tether.
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2022 · 05
Terra UST and Luna death spiral
UST fell from 1 dollar to roughly 0.10 in four days. Luna went from 80 dollars to four-thousandths of a cent. About 60 billion of paper value evaporated. The episode rewrote how regulators see algorithmic designs.
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2023 · 02
NYDFS halts new BUSD issuance
The New York Department of Financial Services orders Paxos to stop minting BUSD. The token started a slow eighteen-month wind-down from a 23 billion supply.
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2023 · 03
USDC SVB depeg, forty-eight hours
Circle had 3.3 billion in reserves at Silicon Valley Bank when it failed. USDC fell to 0.8774 on Coinbase. The peg returned on Monday after the Treasury, Fed and FDIC announced backstops. Read the hour-by-hour version in the cornerstone report.
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2023 · 08
PYUSD launches
PayPal launches a Paxos-issued dollar token. First mainstream stablecoin pushed by a consumer-payments brand rather than a crypto-native firm.
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2024 · 06
MiCA fully in force in the EU
USDT's compliance posture in the EU comes under scrutiny. Several EU-licensed exchanges drop USDT spot pairs. EURC (Circle's euro token) picks up the gap.
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2024 · 06
Circle IPO on the NYSE
Circle lists publicly under CRCL. Investors now read its quarterly statements with the same scrutiny as any listed bank.
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2024 · 09
TUSD repeated depegs
TUSD slipped to about 0.97 multiple times. Disclosure gaps around the Techteryx takeover never closed. Supply fell from roughly 3 billion to under 500 million.
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2025 · 03
Hong Kong stablecoin ordinance
The HKMA's licensing regime for fiat-referenced stablecoins becomes law. FDUSD positions for a first-wave licence.
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2026 · 02
USDT restricted on major EU venues
End of the MiCA transition window. Most top EU exchanges fully delist USDT spot pairs. USDT euro-side liquidity migrates to OTC desks.
What we do that most stablecoin sites do not
We pay our own bridge fees
Every cross-chain number on the site comes from a transaction we sent ourselves. Hash, timestamp and gas figure are on file. We do not republish exchange marketing tables.
Corrections are public, dated, and kept
If we get a number wrong, the corrections page shows the old line, the new line, the date and the reason. We do not silently rewrite old posts.
We disclose the Binance relationship every page
The site earns a referral fee from Binance through code BN16188. Every page says so at the top, the foot of the article, and on the disclaimer. We still publish the parts of Binance that look bad.
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Read the full disclosure →
Where our numbers actually come from
The references we cite most often. Follow any link to read the original document and check our reading against the source.
Issuer disclosures
- Tether TransparencyQuarterly attestation
- Circle TransparencyUSDC monthly attestation
- MakerDAO StatsDAI on-chain collateral
- First Digital TrustFDUSD monthly
- Paxos TransparencyPYUSD and USDP
Regulators and enforcement
- NYAG · Bitfinex / Tether settlementFeb 2021
- SEC press releasesBUSD, stablecoin actions
- ESMA · MiCAEU framework
- HKMA announcementsHK stablecoin ordinance
- FinCENUS MSB and BSA
On-chain and market data
- DeFiLlama · StablecoinsCross-chain supply
- Dune AnalyticsPublic on-chain queries
- CoinMarketCap · StablecoinCEX prices
- EtherscanERC-20 verification
- TRONSCANTRC-20 verification
External links carry rel="nofollow noopener". We are not responsible for the content of third-party sites; the references are listed so you can verify our reading.
No coin shilling · no course sales · no Telegram funnel
One thing only. Pull the stablecoin world apart with plain prose. You decide what to do with what we publish.
Wen Lu
Ten years on the trading side. Started reading Tether quarterly statements in 2018 when they were still only quarterly. Maintains the internal sheet that tracks 200 plus attestation letters from Tether, Circle and MakerDAO. Owns story selection, the first draft of every cornerstone, and the affiliate disclosure language.
Heng Zhou
Background in cross-border payments. Walked through IRS Form 8949 for two US tax seasons, plus the practical edges of OTC USDT settlement in Singapore and Hong Kong. Every number, timestamp and citation on the site passes through Heng's second read.