① The real competition for stablecoins may not be about “who issues them.”
It’s about this: who controls users, and who controls distribution channels.
Circle has a license and USDC, but it still needs to pay large revenue shares to channels such as Coinbase.
This points to one conclusion: issuing power does not equal bargaining power.
② Many people see stablecoins as a business of “lying back and earning interest.”
But IOSG’s view is crucial:
Issuance is production; distribution is sales.
Whether you can get stablecoins into users’ hands and keep balances on your platform for the long term determines how much value you can capture.
③ This is, in fact, the most classic logic in internet business:
A product is not necessarily what’s most profitable—sometimes the entry point is.
Stablecoins are increasingly becoming infrastructure; what’s truly scarce is user entry and balance lock-in.
Exchanges, wallets, and payment networks may have more bargaining power than the issuer alone.
④ So after the stablecoin market cap returns to $270 billion, what’s worth looking at is not just “how much was issued by whom.”
Instead, ask:
Who owns the users?
Who controls payment scenarios?
Who can keep capital continuously inside their own ecosystem?
Market cap is just scale; channels are the moat.
⑤ If this logic holds, the eventual winner in the stablecoin space may not necessarily be the earliest issuer.
It could be the one that distributes best.
When looking at stablecoins, it may help to ask a different question:
Don’t just ask “who is issuing coins,”
but more importantly, ask “who controls the entry point.”
That may be the true value-capture point of the future.
It’s about this: who controls users, and who controls distribution channels.
Circle has a license and USDC, but it still needs to pay large revenue shares to channels such as Coinbase.
This points to one conclusion: issuing power does not equal bargaining power.
② Many people see stablecoins as a business of “lying back and earning interest.”
But IOSG’s view is crucial:
Issuance is production; distribution is sales.
Whether you can get stablecoins into users’ hands and keep balances on your platform for the long term determines how much value you can capture.
③ This is, in fact, the most classic logic in internet business:
A product is not necessarily what’s most profitable—sometimes the entry point is.
Stablecoins are increasingly becoming infrastructure; what’s truly scarce is user entry and balance lock-in.
Exchanges, wallets, and payment networks may have more bargaining power than the issuer alone.
④ So after the stablecoin market cap returns to $270 billion, what’s worth looking at is not just “how much was issued by whom.”
Instead, ask:
Who owns the users?
Who controls payment scenarios?
Who can keep capital continuously inside their own ecosystem?
Market cap is just scale; channels are the moat.
⑤ If this logic holds, the eventual winner in the stablecoin space may not necessarily be the earliest issuer.
It could be the one that distributes best.
When looking at stablecoins, it may help to ask a different question:
Don’t just ask “who is issuing coins,”
but more importantly, ask “who controls the entry point.”
That may be the true value-capture point of the future.