At the heart of an ever-evolving crypto market, stablecoins are experiencing a second youth, and 2025 is proving to be the year when their economic centrality stops being a promise and becomes a fact. Solana ‘s new entry into the Global Dollar Network (GDN ) with its support of the USDG stablecoin is a clear signal: alternative chains are aiming to become major players in the global digital payments system, openly challenging Ethereum on its historical ground.
The move brings Solana alongside Stellar, Polygon and Avalanche, marking a significant expansion of the GDN project and cementing USDG’s role as a credible competitor in the stablecoin arena. USDG, which maintains a strict peg with the US dollar, aims to increase cross-chain liquidity by offering an integrated infrastructure for instant payments between multiple blockchains.
Meanwhile, Ethereum remains the undisputed king of on-chain volume. As of April 2025, the network recorded an all-time record with over $908 billion filtered through stablecoin transactions. Of this huge flow, more than half is accounted for by USDC, which alone exceeded $500 billion in volume. Despite the flourishing of competitors, Ethereum once again proves that its structure and reliability attract the trust of retail and institutional users.
Other emerging players in the sector include DAI, which continues to maintain a central role in DeFi, and Sky’s USDS, which is rapidly gaining ground. But the real coup came with World Liberty Financial’s ambitious USD1, the controversial project linked to former President Trump, which has already reached a capitalisation of almost USD 2 billion, ranking seventh globally.
The growing attention from Fortune 100 companies shows that stablecoins are now considered a strategic tool. Meta has announced the integration of stablecoins into its systems to reduce transaction costs, while Stripe is implementing new payment solutions that rely on stablecoins. This coming together of big tech and financial giants is the ultimate confirmation: programmable money is here to stay.
Competitiveness, however, is growing. More and more companies want to launch their own stablecoin, fuelling a volume war that could lead to a drastic reduction in end-user fees. The risk? A collapse in margins for issuers, who will have to reinvent their business models to remain sustainable.
Solana’s entry into the Global Dollar Network is one more piece of the puzzle. In a world where digital money moves at the speed of light and without borders, whoever offers the best mix of speed, low cost and interoperability dictates the rules. Today, the game is more open than ever and those who underestimate stablecoins risk being left in the past.
Read more: https://www.theblock.co/post/353947/global-dollar-network-new-members-solana-usdg-stablecoin
