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This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <\/em>subscribe<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Looking for a new narrative? Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, has one for ya: yield-bearing stablecoins.\u00a0<\/p>\n Once these stablecoins are better understood, they\u2019re set for takeoff, Boiron said. In fact, he wouldn\u2019t be surprised if it ends up driving \u201ca decent amount of activity in 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n So far, stablecoins (not just yield-bearing ones) are up to a $207 billion market cap, per rwa.xyz data<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just the yield that\u2019ll draw stablecoin activity, it\u2019s also the regulatory clarity that we\u2019re seeing over in Europe courtesy of MiCA. It\u2019s even looking more and more likely that the US is on the regulatory path as well.<\/p>\n For companies \u2014 like fintechs \u2014 watching the stablecoin market from the sidelines, it\u2019s hard to not feel the FOMO when looking at Tether\u2019s attestations. And that\u2019s clear from Boiron\u2019s conversations with non-crypto native folks.\u00a0<\/p>\n This, shall we call them, new set of players are telling Boiron, \u201chey, we want our own stablecoin, because we can see how much money we can make off of it, and we\u2019ve got a boatload of users, it\u2019s really easy to push them into that stablecoin and get a lot of volume, and obviously revenue from that as well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe second part of it is just having better rails for their users, knowing that there\u2019s a set of users who are [going to want to] send payments, especially remittances, as of right now, and they actually want to make that available rather than incurring\u201d fees, he continued.<\/p>\n I mean, let\u2019s take a look at Tether\u2019s third-quarter attestation from last year<\/a>. The firm reported a whopping $2.5 billion net profit in that quarter alone, even if it does bundle unrealized gains<\/a> on bitcoin with other revenue in its disclosures.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody sees how profitable Tether is, and they\u2019re like, \u2018Okay, I can do that with less risk now,\u2019 especially fintechs, right?\u201d He said. Boiron believes we\u2019ll see new entrants that are looking to enter the space because there may be the opportunity to improve the user experience through yield-bearing stablecoins.<\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re going to see companies simply launch their own stablecoins. They\u2019ll also adopt other stablecoins as well, Boiron added.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey understand that there\u2019s a significant distribution of USDC, and a lot of people hold it. They\u2019ll, for example, want to make that still available through their application, while also launching their own stablecoin,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n More than that, Boiron thinks that Polygon Labs\u2019 ability to scale and push \u201cmassive\u201d amounts of stablecoin volumes onchain means that now is the time for stablecoins to really <\/em>shine.\u00a0<\/p>\n I told Boiron that I thought 2024 was the year of the stablecoin, but I\u2019m beginning to think this is just the start.<\/p>\n Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter<\/a> \u2014 market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.<\/strong><\/p>\n
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