Stablecoins were introduced relatively recently, within the last few years, and are expected to be the golden goose of crowded markets someday. Their boom is expected to be accompanied by a global increase in the adoption of cryptocurrency.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As the name suggests, Stablecoins may or may not be considered currencies that transcend national borders. Due to its nature of rigidity and borderless tendencies, it is freely usable anywhere, at any time, and brings about financial freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n They provide liquidity and predictability, making them attractive to both users and businesses.<\/span><\/p>\n Stablecoins are digital assets intended to minimize price volatility. Their value is typically tied to fiat currencies, such as the dollar, or other assets. There are different types of stablecoins, including:<\/span><\/p>\n What is DeFi Security<\/a><\/p>\n The business models of stablecoins vary depending on their reserve structure and income-generating strategy. The main approaches include:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Based on Tether\u2019s attestations, Circle\u2019s S-1 filing, and our Dune dashboards for Sky, we show a simplified comparison of key financial metrics for the three major stablecoins. A caveat: Tether doesn\u2019t disclose its operating expenses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n We conservatively assume it\u2019s twice Circle\u2019s total operating expenses, based on the relative balance sheet sizes (approximately $1 billion a year). This is likely overstated due to the significant operating leverage that can be achieved by scaling a balance sheet through stablecoin liabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n The question of valuation remains open to debate. All stablecoins are relatively new in capital markets, so there\u2019s no track record of what a \u2018fair\u2019 value is. Furthermore, the largest stablecoin, Tether, is privately owned, making peer-to-peer comparison difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n The Price-to-Book ratio isn\u2019t suitable, as stablecoins can be lightly capitalized. The price-to-assets ratio depends on asset monetization perspectives, which may differ between full reserve and fractional reserve stablecoins. The price-to-operating income or Earnings Ratio has distortions, such as non-interest income, making comparisons difficult. New reasoning may be needed to find a suitable valuation framework for stablecoins and investors.<\/span><\/p>\n Common-size stablecoin comparison between full and fractional reserve business models<\/span><\/p>\n At <\/span>OQTACORE<\/span><\/a>, we specialize in creating high-performance solutions that are scalable, secure, and designed for the Web3 era. We help businesses transform complex systems into efficient, reliable, and future-ready products.<\/span><\/p>\n Learn more:<\/span><\/p>\n Services<\/span><\/a> |<\/span> Cases<\/span><\/a> |<\/span> X\/Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Explore the evolving landscape of stablecoin business models in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_mo_disable_npp":"","yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":{"image":1830},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0,"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oqtacore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oqtacore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oqtacore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oqtacore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oqtacore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1828"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/oqtacore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1860,"href":"https:\/\/oqtacore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828\/revisions\/1860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oqtacore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oqtacore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oqtacore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span>What are Stablecoins?<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>Stablecoin Business Models<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>Common size comparison of major stablecoins<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
Key Financial Statement Metrics<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"Stablecoin](\"https:\/\/oqtacore.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/2-3.png\")
<\/span>You can\u2019t escape ROE<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
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\n<\/b>Tether and Sky offer competitive returns. Sky has higher funding costs, making USDS a more attractive option. Tether dominates due to its lack of funding costs. Circle\u2019s funding costs are high, leaving a gap in the spread.<\/span><\/li>\n
\n<\/b>Tether adds unrealized profit and loss (P&L) to non-interest income, which poses solvency and liquidity risks. Circle and Sky lack significant non-interest income or commodity reserves. Stablecoins don\u2019t account for credit-related losses, but buffer against them.<\/span><\/li>\n
\n<\/b>Tether is conservatively levered, while Circle is more highly levered. Sky\u2019s high leverage is supported by user equity that is not counted in the surplus, demonstrating capital efficiency in decentralized stablecoins, backed by full on-chain transparency.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/span>What value?<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>Build with OQTACORE<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n