Stablecoins are increasingly acting like specialized infrastructure rather than direct substitutes. New usage data highlighted by Dune suggests that Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC are consolidating around different on-chain and real-world roles—USDT leaning into commercial payments while USDC remains tightly linked to decentralized finance (DeFi) activity.

At the same time, Europe’s MiCA framework appears to be accelerating demand for euro-pegged stablecoins, while traditional finance continues to warm to tokenization. Elsewhere in Crypto Biz, Strategy’s latest Bitcoin sale to fund shareholder dividends has reopened discussion around the company’s “never sell” posture, and Vanguard has moved closer to digital assets by…