In February 2026, four institutions launched stablecoins within a single week: Fidelity (FIDD), Tether (USAℤ), OSL Group (USDGO), and Sui (suiUSDe). SoFi had already entered the market in December 2025 with SoFiUSD. The stablecoin market, exceeding $310 billion as of mid-February 2026, is undergoing a structural transformation. What was once a duopoly between Tether and Circle is becoming a multi-issuer ecosystem where asset managers, fintechs, and banks compete to mint regulated dollars. The implications for institutional infrastructure extend beyond payments into custody, settlement, and capital markets.
The Duopoly Breaks
For most of its history, the stablecoin market has been defined by two names. Tether's USDT, with a market capitalization of $187.3 billion as of February 2026, commands approximately 61% market share. Circle's USDC, at $75.7 billion, holds approximately 24%. Together, they account for nearly 85% of a market exceeding $310 billion as of mid-February 2026. That dominance is about to face its most serious challenge.
The catalyst is regulatory clarity. The GENIUS Act, signed into law on July 18, 2025, established the first federal framework for payment stablecoins. It mandates 1:1 reserve backing, monthly attestations, and creates a national trust bank charter pathway through the OCC. Five institutions received conditional OCC charter approvals by December 2025. The law's implementing regulations are due by July 18, 2026, with full compliance required by January 18, 2027.
The framework answered the question institutions had been asking for years: Is there a regulatory structure we can underwrite? The answer arrived, and the market responded immediately.
The New Issuers
The February 2026 launches share a pattern: each issuer brings an existing institutional distribution network that neither Tether nor Circle can replicate.
Fidelity (FIDD). According to industry reports, Fidelity Digital Assets launched the Fidelity Digital Dollar on Ethereum, backed by cash and short-term U.S. Treasury bonds. It is the first stablecoin from a top-five U.S. asset manager by assets under management. Fidelity's distribution advantage is its more than 50 million customer accounts and its existing digital asset custody infrastructure. FIDD is designed as a GENIUS Act-compliant payment stablecoin with direct integration into Fidelity's institutional platform.
Tether (USAℤ). Tether's new U.S.-regulated stablecoin, distinct from its offshore USDT, launched through Anchorage Digital Bank, a federally chartered digital asset bank. Bo Hines was appointed CEO. Initial availability spans Kraken, Crypto.com, OKX, Bybit, and MoonPay. The product represents Tether's strategic acknowledgment that the U.S. regulated market requires a separate, GENIUS Act-compliant instrument.
SoFi (SoFiUSD). SoFi Technologies, a publicly traded fintech with more than 10 million members and a national bank charter, launched SoFiUSD in December 2025. Unlike Fidelity's institutional focus, SoFi targets its existing retail and small business customer base, creating a payments layer within its banking ecosystem. Its earlier entry previewed the institutional wave that followed in February.
OSL Group (USDGO). Hong Kong-listed OSL Group launched USDGO on Solana with an initial issuance of $50 million. The product targets enterprise-grade settlement, particularly in Asia-Pacific markets where regulated USD stablecoin access remains limited.
| Issuer | Stablecoin | Chain | Distribution Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fidelity | FIDD | Ethereum | 50M+ customer accounts, institutional custody |
| Tether | USAℤ | Multiple | 534M existing USDT users, 5 exchange partners |
| SoFi | SoFiUSD | TBD | 10M+ members, national bank charter |
| OSL Group | USDGO | Solana | Asia-Pacific institutional access, HK-regulated |
Why Asset Managers Are Entering
The economics of stablecoin issuance are straightforward and attractive. An issuer collects reserves -- predominantly short-term Treasuries yielding approximately 4-5% annually -- and issues tokens redeemable at par. The yield on reserves accrues to the issuer, not the holder, because the GENIUS Act explicitly prohibits interest payments on payment stablecoins. At scale, the model generates substantial revenue with minimal credit risk.
Tether reported more than $10 billion in net profit for 2024 on its reserve holdings, according to its attestation reports. Circle, preparing for its IPO, disclosed $1.7 billion in revenue for the same period. While these are different metrics -- profit versus revenue -- both illustrate the scale of the economic opportunity in reserve management. For firms like Fidelity, the marginal cost of issuing a stablecoin against reserves they already manage is low relative to the revenue opportunity.
The structural insight: Stablecoin issuance is, at its core, a Treasury management business. The GENIUS Act's yield prohibition ensures that issuers -- not holders -- capture the spread between reserve yields and zero-cost liabilities. For asset managers already operating Treasury and money market desks, this is a natural extension of existing infrastructure, not a new business line.
What Multi-Issuer Means for Institutional Markets
The shift from duopoly to multi-issuer ecosystem creates both opportunities and risks for institutional participants.
Settlement optionality. Institutions can now select stablecoins based on counterparty preference, chain availability, and regulatory jurisdiction. A U.S. institutional desk may prefer FIDD for Fidelity-custodied assets, USDC for DeFi composability, and USDGO for Asia-Pacific settlement. This mirrors the multi-bank correspondent banking model that institutions already operate.
Interoperability complexity. More issuers mean more instruments that must be evaluated for reserve quality, redemption reliability, and regulatory status. Compliance teams will need frameworks for assessing which stablecoins meet internal risk standards. The differentiation will increasingly center on governance and transparency, not technology.
Compression of issuer margins. Competition will eventually pressure the spread that issuers earn on reserves. This favors large-scale operators with low marginal costs -- precisely the profile of established asset managers. Smaller issuers without distribution advantages may struggle to achieve the scale required for profitability.
The NCUA Signal
On February 11, 2026, the National Credit Union Administration published proposed rules for Permitted Payment Stablecoin Issuer (PPSI) licensing. Credit unions cannot issue stablecoins directly but may do so through subsidiaries in which they hold more than 10% ownership. The NCUA must render a licensing decision within 120 days; applications are deemed approved if no decision is made within 120 days of substantial completion.
The rulemaking, with a public comment period closing April 13, 2026, signals that federal regulators are building implementation infrastructure on schedule. The state certification deadline -- July 18, 2026, when state regulators must certify framework "substantial similarity" -- is approaching without delays. For institutions waiting for regulatory certainty before engaging, the remaining window for preparation is narrowing.
What Comes Next
The stablecoin market is transitioning from a question of legitimacy to a question of market structure. The GENIUS Act resolved legitimacy. The February 2026 launches demonstrate that the market structure question is being answered by competition.
The parallels to earlier financial infrastructure transitions are instructive. Credit cards consolidated from hundreds of bank-issued programs into networks (Visa, Mastercard) that enabled interoperability while preserving issuer competition. Money market funds followed a similar pattern: many issuers, standardized regulation, competition on yield and distribution. Stablecoins appear to be following the money market fund model -- many issuers operating under a common regulatory framework, competing on distribution and trust rather than on product differentiation.
For institutional allocators, the strategic question is no longer whether stablecoins are legitimate infrastructure. It is which issuers have the governance, reserves, and distribution to remain viable as the market matures. In a multi-issuer world, counterparty analysis returns to the center of the conversation.
For the C-Suite: The stablecoin market has moved past the duopoly era. Four new issuers in a single week -- including the first from a top-five U.S. asset manager -- signals that regulated dollar instruments on blockchain rails are becoming standard financial infrastructure. The institutions that treat stablecoin selection as a counterparty risk decision, rather than a technology choice, will be better positioned as the market consolidates.
Sources
| Source | Reference |
|---|---|
| GENIUS Act (S.394) | Congress.gov, signed July 18, 2025 |
| Tether Attestation Reports | tether.to/transparency, 2024 annual report |
| Circle S-1 Filing | SEC EDGAR, 2025 |
| Fidelity FIDD Launch | Industry reports, February 2026 |
| Tether USAℤ via Anchorage | CoinDesk, Bloomberg, February 2026 |
| SoFi SoFiUSD Launch | CoinDesk, December 18, 2025 |
| OSL Group USDGO | OSL Group press release, February 2026 |
| NCUA PPSI Proposed Rules | Federal Register, February 11, 2026 |
| Visa Stablecoin Settlement | Visa On-Chain Analytics Dashboard, 2025 |
| Stablecoin Market Data | CoinGecko, CoinSpectator, as of mid-February 2026 |
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