Stablecoin “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”: Profit Sharing in the 315 Billion Dollar Pool

Q1 2026, the total market value of stablecoins broke through 315 billion. Behind this data, there are actually three completely different “profit models” at play. As a holder, you need to see clearly the ledger behind this.
First is the “offshore hegemon” USDT.
Tether’s current profit can even rival Goldman Sachs. Its logic is the simplest and most straightforward: I use your dollars to buy US bonds, buy Bitcoin, buy gold, and all the profits go into my pocket, without sharing a penny of interest with users. It’s non-compliant, it has a black box, but it has a key — liquidity. As long as all industry trading pairs are linked with USDT, it is that “big but too big to fail” shadow central bank. You use its convenience, you must accept being exploited for interest.
Next is the “compliance benchmark” USDC.
Circle follows an elite route, and after its IPO in 2025, it has become a compliant white glove. USDC’s reserve management is indeed transparent, but its biggest problem is “interest being drained by intermediaries.” You can see from its revenue-sharing agreement with Coinbase that Circle’s main earnings must be paid as protection fees to channel partners. The renewal in August 2026 is a hurdle; if negotiations fail, its profit margin will look very poor.
Finally, there is this disruptor USD1.
Its rise represents a third logic: interest redistribution.
Since regulators do not allow direct interest payments on stablecoins, I will return profits to users through WLFI’s ecosystem subsidies. This is essentially playing “rural encircles the city.” Through CEX’s financial activities and various Launchpool supports, it has broken into the TOP 5 within a year. The core logic of USD1 is not transparency, but “interest bundling.” It pulls together sovereign funds and exchanges to share profits, taking some of the profits that Tether used to swallow whole, and exchanging them for its market share.
The situation is now clear: USDT relies on scale, USDC on compliance, USD1 on subsidies.
In this blue ocean with an 80% annual growth, who will ultimately win? It depends on who can define the “scenes.” USD1’s current Agentic SDK and RWA exclusive settlement are building a moat for itself. As a practical player, I don’t care who is “more correct,” I only care about whose profit model can be sustained longer. Currently, USD1’s “dividend logic” is indeed invincible during expansion.