The competitive logic of the stablecoin industry has been thoroughly iterated. In the past, the market competition was based on compliance qualifications and license advantages, but now the core battle of the track has shifted to occupying trading scenes and distributing low-level traffic rights. Whoever can deeply embed into the high-frequency trading system and occupy the settlement entrance on the core chain will have the long-term discourse power in the stablecoin track.

After the implementation of the GENIUS Act, compliance dividends led to a phase of growth for USDC, with trading volume surpassing USDT at one point. However, in terms of overall market share, USDT remains the absolute leader, firmly controlling the overseas global market. Relying solely on the compliance advantages of the United States cannot help USDC break through the rigid pattern. In this context, the strategic partnership between Circle and Coinbase and Hyperliquid is not simply a platform cooperation, but a core strategic layout for USDC to break through growth bottlenecks and counterattack USDT head-on. The ultimate battlefield for encrypted stablecoins has officially landed on the blockchain perpetual contract track.

1、 Compliance dividend peaks: USDC has volume but no market, and the pattern is difficult to break through

Relying on its pure American background and compliance system, USDC has benefited first in the wave of regulatory standardization. According to Allium data in May 2026, the monthly trading volume of USDC reached $355 billion, surpassing USDT in stages, which intuitively reflects the increase in trading heat brought about by compliance narratives.

But the short-term surge in trading volume has not rewritten the stock pattern of stablecoins. Comparing the market share data before and after one year, it is clear that the industry is in a state of solidification: before the implementation of the GENIUS Act in April 2025, the USDT market accounted for 67% and the USDC market accounted for 27.6%; As of April 2026, the USDT share has risen slightly to 67.3%, while the USDC has only slightly increased to 28.1%. Within a year, the share of the two top stablecoins has remained almost unchanged.

The growth of USDC is highly dependent on the US single market, which also poses structural risks for it. On the one hand, a large number of new players have entered the domestic market in the United States. Stripe has laid out its stablecoin business through Tempo, and multiple traditional financial institutions continue to launch compliant stablecoins, continuously eroding the basic market of USDC; On the other hand, overseas markets are entirely dominated by USDT, which has become the default settlement stablecoin for non US markets worldwide due to its long-term trading experience. With the support of the new public chain ecosystem, USDT continues to expand, while also launching a compliant product line called USAT, which penetrates the US domestic market in reverse and forms a two-way squeeze on USDC.

Under multiple pressures such as the gradual peak of compliance dividends, intensified internal competition in the local market, and a lack of overseas basic stocks, USDC urgently needs a new large-scale distribution channel to break the incremental dilemma.

2、 Hyperliquid Trading Refactoring: USDC replaces native stablecoins for mutual benefit

Hyperliquid, as the absolute leader in the on chain perpetual contract arena, has long been a core resource that industry giants are vying for. With the intensive landing of HYPE spot ETFs in the US market and the continuous influx of institutional funds, the value of the platform's financial infrastructure is further highlighted, and all parties are competing for the right to enter its economic system.

In fact, Hyperliquid has attempted to build an autonomous stablecoin system to break free from external dependencies. Last autumn, the platform launched a public tender to solicit proposals for the native stablecoin USDH, with the core demand being to recover the interest income that originally flowed to the outside world. At that time, over $5.6 billion in USDC was hosted on the Hyperliquid cross chain bridge, generating approximately $200 million in annual interest income, all of which belonged to external institutions, and the platform that created demand itself could not benefit. In the end, Native Markets successfully won the bid and USDH officially launched, attempting to restructure the platform's revenue system.

But the industry landscape is constantly changing. Recently, Native Markets announced the sale of USDH to Coinbase and the gradual closure of the native stablecoin, while USDC returned to its position as a core asset valued by Hyperliquid. As a core exchange condition, Hyperliquid can obtain 90% of the related transaction returns, with a sharing ratio twice that of the previous USDH model.

This transaction has achieved two-way empowerment. For Hyperliquid, not only does it receive a doubled revenue share, but it also binds to the core resources of Coinbase and Circle in the US regulatory authorities, gaining stronger compliance endorsements and policy buffers. At the same time, it returns to the USDC trading ecosystem that users are highly familiar with and highly adaptable to, perfectly adapting to the HIP-3 global asset trading scenario on the platform.

For Coinbase and Circle, the core value of this transaction lies not in short-term brand exposure, but in obtaining scarce global on chain transaction distribution channels, completely filling the structural weaknesses of their own businesses.

3、 Core Strategy: Coinbase Borrows Ships to Go Overseas and Fill Global Traffic Shortcomings

The core competitiveness of stablecoins is not only in terms of issuance scale, but also in terms of depth embedded in the global trading system. Tether has already validated this logic by binding to the centralized perpetual contract ecosystem of Binance: relying on the platform's massive trading scenarios, USDT firmly occupies the pricing seat of mainstream trading pairs worldwide, continuously accumulating real needs such as margin, on chain transfer, recharge and withdrawal, and building an unshakable network effect.

Compared to Tether, Coinbase has always been limited by the regulatory framework in the United States and its global business layout is severely restricted. At present, Coinbase only covers about 100 countries and regions, which is less than half of Binance's 180 coverage areas. It is unable to build a global trading distribution network that benchmarks USDT, which is also the core problem for USDC's long-term difficulty in leaving the local market.

And Hyperliquid precisely fills this gap. As a leading player in on chain perpetual contracts, Hyperliquid holds a 30% market share and controls 46% of the total open contracts on the chain, demonstrating a solid industry position. Its trading volume has reached 50% of Bybit, 30% of OKX, and 79% of Coinbase International. Although its overall volume is only 13% of Binance, it has maintained steady growth.

More importantly, Hyperliquid relies on a relaxed global operating environment and has global reach capabilities that Coinbase cannot replicate. Through this cooperation, USDC has officially become deeply embedded in the global core on chain trading layer, upgrading from a "US compliant stablecoin" to a global on chain trading base currency. It does not need to bear the cost of overseas compliance layout and can connect with global high-frequency trading traffic, directly hedging against USDT's network advantages.

4、 Industry consensus landing: perpetual contracts become the ultimate battlefield for stablecoins

The fastest growing track in the current cryptocurrency industry is perpetual contracts. This category has maintained double-digit or even triple digit year-on-year growth for a long time, and has formed a strong binding relationship with stablecoins - all contract transactions rely on stablecoins for pricing, margin, and settlement. Whoever can seize the underlying asset seat of mainstream perpetual contract platforms will be able to continuously harvest massive high-frequency and high stickiness real on chain demand.

The logic of track competition has formed a unified paradigm, and Tether has already taken the lead in landing its layout. After Solana's top perpetual contract DEX Drift was attacked in April this year, Tether invested up to $147.5 million to help it resume operations, in exchange for USDT becoming the core settlement asset of Drift. At the same time, Tether provided special USDT funding support for market makers and empowered platform trading incentives. This operation directly rewrites the Solana ecosystem stablecoin landscape, reversing the previous market situation where USDC traffic was twice that of USDT.

The actions of top players confirm the same conclusion: the ultimate competition of stablecoins is not issued in the primary market, but in high-frequency trading scenarios in the secondary market.

5、 Forward planning for the future: betting on the dividends of US perpetual contract regulatory openness

The deep binding between USDC and Hyperliquid this time is also an early bet on future regulatory trends. The US regulatory authorities are gradually lifting restrictions on cryptocurrency derivatives trading, and the Chairman of the CFTC has expressed support for the compliant implementation of perpetual contracts in the US. The CLARITY Act is expected to provide institutional support for track compliance. At the same time, the SEC has introduced the "Innovation Exemption" policy, allowing compliant crypto platforms to conduct tokenized US stock on chain trading with lightweight registration rules.

Against the backdrop of continuously open regulatory windows, Coinbase has completed its layout ahead of schedule, allowing USDC to be deeply embedded in the underlying layer of Hyperliquid trading. Once the US perpetual contract market is officially opened, Hyperliquid can quickly take on incremental funding and institutional demand with its mature infrastructure and USDC compliant asset base. USDC will also seize absolute dominance in the US compliant perpetual contract track, completing a comprehensive reversal of USDT.

Conclusion

The era of compliance dividends in the stablecoin market has come to an end, and the battle for traffic and scenarios has officially begun. USDT remains a global leader with its centralized exchange perpetual contract ecosystem, while USDC, relying on its strategic cooperation with Hyperliquid, has successfully opened up the core track of high-frequency trading on the chain and filled the gap in global distribution.

In the future, as the on chain perpetual contract market continues to expand and the US regulatory window continues to release dividends, the competition around underlying trading currencies will further intensify. Hyperliquid is no longer just a trading platform, but the core battlefield for USDC to overturn USDT, and will also determine the industry landscape and power ownership of global stablecoins in the coming years.