By <\/em>Stephen McBride<\/em><\/a>, Chief Analyst at RiskHedge<\/em><\/p>\n Can you name the most profitable business in the\u00a0world?<\/p>\n It\u2019s not Apple (AAPL<\/a>), Microsoft (MSFT), or Nvidia\u00a0(NVDA)<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a crypto business.<\/p>\n Tether (USDT) raked in $14 billion in profit last year with just 150 employees. That\u2019s $93 million per employee. No other company comes\u00a0close.<\/strong><\/p>\n Even the mighty Nvidia rakes in \u201cjust\u201d $2 million per employee.<\/p>\n USDT is the largest and most popular stablecoin in the\u00a0world.<\/p>\n Stablecoins are digital dollars that move on blockchains and are pegged 1:1 with\u00a0USD.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been saying for years that stablecoins are crypto\u2019s killer use\u00a0case.<\/strong><\/p>\n They basically give everyone on Earth instant access to a US dollar bank account. They can be transferred anywhere around the world in mere seconds. 24\/7\/365.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve ever found yourself asking, \u201cWhat is crypto good for?\u201d run this experiment for me. <\/strong>Try sending money overseas. I had to make an international wire transfer recently and oh, man, what an ordeal. It cost me $20 and almost an hour of my\u00a0time.<\/p>\n Then try to send the same payment with stablecoins via blockchain rails. No banks. No waiting. Stablecoins are the only way to send $10,000 to a friend halfway around the world in seconds, from your phone, for less than a\u00a0penny.<\/p>\n It\u2019s finance at internet\u00a0speed.<\/p>\n When I lived in Argentina, locals trying to escape hyperinflation would beg me for dollars. Now, they can instantly change money into \u201cdigital dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n Folks often talk about crypto replacing the US dollar. If anything, stablecoins strengthen the dollar\u2019s dominance. But I\u2019m certain they\u2019ll replace the 100+ worthless currencies around the\u00a0world.<\/p>\n In Bolivia, some grocery stores now show prices in\u00a0USDT:<\/p>\n Source: @paoloardoino on\u00a0X<\/em><\/p>\n Look at their charts. Just one all-time high after another. Truly two of the greatest moneymaking machines on\u00a0Earth:<\/p>\n Visa and Mastercard dominate the payments landscape, processing trillions of dollars in card payment each year. Everywhere I travel in the world, I see two things: Coca-Cola and Visa terminals.<\/p>\n What if I told you stablecoin transactions just surpassed both Visa and Mastercard for the first\u00a0time?<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2024, stablecoin volumes hit $14 trillion compared to Visa\u2019s $13 trillion:<\/p>\n Source: Binance<\/em><\/p>\n Guys, wake up. There\u2019s a financial revolution unfolding.<\/p>\n The number of stablecoins in circulation also recently hit $250 billion for the first time ever. We\u2019re on a path to $1 trillion:<\/p>\n Source: DefiLlama<\/em><\/p>\n Tether\u2019s USDT dominates the stablecoin landscape with around 70% market\u00a0share.<\/p>\n Unlike money transmitters like Western Union (WU), Tether doesn\u2019t slam you with fees. It basically runs a \u201cmoney market\u201d business model. Every time someone buys USDT, Tether takes that cash and buys mostly US Treasuries. Then it collects the\u00a0yield.<\/strong><\/p>\n Multiply that by $155 billion in circulating USDT and voila, you have the most profitable business in the\u00a0world.<\/strong><\/p>\n The<\/em> Wall Street Journal<\/em> just reported<\/a> America\u2019s two largest retailers, Walmart (WMT) and Amazon (AMZN), are preparing to launch their own stablecoins.<\/p>\n Why give Visa 2%\u20133% of every transaction when you can own the payment rails yourself?<\/p>\n Paying with WalmartCoin or AmazonCoin will soon become a checkout\u00a0option.<\/p>\n This is just another example of stablecoins transforming the financial world.<\/p>\n Payments giant Stripe recently acquired stablecoin platform Bridge for $1 billion. And Shopify (SHOP) now allows sellers on its platform to accept stablecoins and bypass card networks.<\/p>\n Circle Internet (CRCL)<\/strong><\/a> is the company behind the second-largest stablecoin, USDC.<\/p>\n Circle went public two weeks ago and took off like a rocket ship, tripling in\u00a0price:<\/p>\n If Tether were public, I\u2019d buy it in a heartbeat. But I\u2019d avoid\u00a0Circle.<\/p>\n At first glance, its business is identical to Tether. It invests its reserves into Treasuries and pockets the\u00a0yield.<\/p>\n But unlike Tether, Circle doesn\u2019t keep all its\u00a0profits.<\/strong><\/p>\n It hands over a massive chunk of that revenue to Coinbase\u00a0(COIN).<\/p>\n USDC was originally a joint venture between Circle and Coinbase. The crypto exchange is still the main distribution platform for USDC. That allows Coinbase to earns half of USDC\u2019s interest\u00a0income.<\/p>\n I\u2019d much rather own Coinbase than\u00a0Circle.<\/p>\n Circle shot out of the gates, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019ll last. It will be acquired by Coinbase or a bank in the next year or\u00a0two.<\/strong><\/p>\n Own the\u00a0rails.<\/p>\n As I mentioned, there\u2019s roughly $250 billion worth of stablecoins in circulation today.<\/p>\n Over 60% of these transactions happen on Ethereum\u2019s (ETH<\/a>) blockchain and its Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum\u00a0(ARB).<\/p>\n Source:rwa.xyz<\/em><\/p>\n Each time you use Ethereum\u2019s blockchain, you pay a\u00a0fee.<\/p>\n Over the past two years, stablecoin transactions alone have generated $288 million in revenue for Ethereum.<\/strong><\/p>\n As stablecoin volumes continue their steady march higher, expect revenue from fees to surge. That\u2019s great for Ethereum and Ethereum holders, who can earn a slice of these fees by staking their\u00a0tokens.<\/p>\n Stablecoins are crypto\u2019s first killer use case, but they won\u2019t be the\u00a0last.<\/p>\n Blockchain will disrupt many established businesses in the coming\u00a0years.<\/p>\n We recently published a report on a little-known crypto disrupting Google Maps. You can read about it, plus two other small cryptos, by clicking\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n For more insights and analysis, <\/strong>subscribe to The\u00a0Jolt\u26a1<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n We publish fresh research every Monday and\u00a0Friday.<\/p>\n Click here to learn\u00a0more<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 Stephen McBride, Chief Analyst at <\/em>RiskHedge<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n The most profitable business in the world.<\/a> was originally published in Coinmonks<\/a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s a crypto\u00a0company. By Stephen McBride, Chief Analyst at RiskHedge Can you name the most profitable business in the\u00a0world? It\u2019s not Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), or Nvidia\u00a0(NVDA). It\u2019s a crypto business. Tether (USDT) raked in $14 billion in profit last year with just 150 employees. That\u2019s $93 million per employee. No other company comes\u00a0close. Even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tether is the company behind\u00a0USDT.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) are two of the greatest stocks in\u00a0history.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Coming soon: \u201cWalmartCoin.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Tether\u2019s biggest competitor just\u00a0IPO\u2019d\u2026<\/strong><\/h3>\n
What\u2019s the easiest way to profit from the rise of stablecoins?<\/strong><\/h3>\n