Stellar's financial ecosystem expanded significantly in 2025, with stablecoin market cap growing 53% to $243.6M driven by PayPal's PYUSD launch, while RWA market cap surged 196% to $890.2M. U.S. Bank is testing custom stablecoin issuance on Stellar, and the Marshall Islands completed the world's first onchain universal basic income disbursement by a national government.
Stellar's financial ecosystem achieved major milestones in 2025 across stablecoins, real world assets, and DeFi. Stablecoin market cap increased 53% year-over-year to $243.6M, driven by PayPal's PYUSD launch in September and USDC's 45% growth to $223.1M. U.S. Bank announced testing of custom stablecoin issuance on Stellar, citing the network's 99.99% uptime, sub-cent settlement costs, and built-in regulatory compliance features like clawback functionality. The Marshall Islands completed the world's first onchain universal basic income disbursement by a national government in December using tokenized bonds on Stellar. RWA market cap surged 196% to $890.2M, led by Franklin Templeton's BENJI fund ($569.3M), new treasury offerings from Spiko, and real estate tokenization from RedSwan. DeFi TVL grew 284% to $172.5M, with Blend protocol reaching $79.9M and offering attractive USDC yields of 12-18%. New composability initiatives include Templar protocol and proposed T-REX standard for regulated token exchanges.
