The Plexo Stablecoin Regulation Index — Q3 2026

Reader Brief

As of Q3 2026, **76 of the 207 jurisdictions tracked by Plexo operate a live stablecoin regulatory framework**, 61 have stablecoin-specific legislation, and 17 ban stablecoins outright. The tracked stablecoin market stands at **$297.1 billion across 81 coins** — 86.4% of it concentrated in just two US-dollar tokens, USDT and USDC. The Plexo Stablecoin Regulation Index is a quarterly, numbers-first snapshot of how the world regulates stablecoins, derived from Plexo's continuously parsed registry of laws, regulators, licensed entities, and issuer authorizations. Every figure below is computed from the live dataset. Data as of July 24–28, 2026. Last verified: July 28, 2026.

The 2026 map is licensing-first: for every jurisdiction that bans stablecoins, three now license them. The regulatory question has moved from whether to how — and the data shows issuers voting with their EMI applications.

The headline numbers

• 76/207 Jurisdictions with a live stablecoin framework
• $297.1B Tracked stablecoin market cap
• 33 Stablecoin laws enacted in 2025
• 14 MiCA EMT-path issuers tracked in the EU

The law map: licensing beats banning three to one

**Finding 1: 76 of 207 tracked jurisdictions (37%) now operate a live stablecoin framework.** A further 14 have frameworks in progress and 40 are at the development stage — meaning 130 of 207 jurisdictions have regulatory activity underway. Only 69 assessed jurisdictions still have no framework at all. The single largest regime type is licensing (48 jurisdictions), followed by registration (38). Sixty-one jurisdictions have legislation written specifically for stablecoins rather than generic virtual-asset rules.

Was 2025 really the biggest year in stablecoin lawmaking?

**Finding 2: 33 stablecoin laws were enacted in 2025 — more than in any other year on record, and double 2024's 16.** Of the 132 stablecoin laws Plexo tracks across 71 jurisdictions, 107 (81%) were enacted since 2021. The wave has two anchors: the EU's MiCA (Regulation (EU) 2023/1114), whose e-money-token provisions applied from June 30, 2024, and the US GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025 — each triggering follow-on legislation across smaller jurisdictions. 2026 has added 2 laws year-to-date.

Finding 3

**17 of 207 tracked jurisdictions still prohibit stablecoin activity entirely.** Bans persist alongside the licensing wave: for every jurisdiction with a prohibition, roughly three now run a licensing regime. Another 38 jurisdictions remain classified "unclear" — no explicit permission, no explicit ban — which is where compliance teams report the highest legal-opinion costs.

A $297 billion market two coins dominate

**Finding 4: the 81 stablecoins tracked by Plexo hold a combined live market capitalization of $297.1 billion** (as of July 24, 2026). USDT accounts for $184.0B (61.9%) and USDC for $72.7B (24.5%) — together 86.4% of the tracked market. The remaining 79 coins split $40.4B. 74 of the 81 tracked coins (91%) are fiat-backed.

• 61.9% USDT share $184.0B of the tracked market
• 24.5% USDC share $72.7B of the tracked market
• 0.21% All euro stablecoins $635M across 14 EUR-pegged coins

How big are euro stablecoins two years into MiCA?

**Finding 5: the 14 euro-pegged stablecoins tracked by Plexo hold $635 million combined — 0.21% of the tracked market, and just 0.35% of USDT alone.** Circle's EURC ($433M) is two-thirds of the entire euro segment; SG Forge's EURCV ($147M) is second. Two years after MiCA made the EU the first major bloc with a bespoke e-money-token regime, euro-denominated supply remains a rounding error against dollar tokens — the clearest single number on the dollar's network effect in regulated crypto. **Finding 7: 40 of the 81 tracked stablecoins (49%) launched in 2024 or later** — 16 in 2024, 17 in 2025, and 7 in the first half of 2026. The launch wave is de-dollarizing at the edges: non-USD pegs now span 17 currencies, from AED and CHF to NGN and KGS. Regulation is acting as a launch catalyst, not a brake: the two biggest launch years followed MiCA's application and the GENIUS Act.

The MiCA EMT club: 14 issuers, 9 member states

**Finding 6: 14 stablecoin issuers tracked in the Plexo registry hold EU Electronic Money Institution authorizations — the MiCA path to issuing e-money tokens — across 9 member states.** France leads with 3. Cross-check any issuer against the EBA's public EMI registers; figures describe Plexo registry coverage.

Notable absence

Tether does not appear: **USDT is explicitly not MiCA-compliant** and has been delisted from EU trading venues, while remaining 61.9% of the global tracked market — the sharpest regulatory-market split in the dataset.

The infrastructure layer: registers, the Travel Rule, and CBDCs

**Finding 8: 49 jurisdictions enforce the FATF Travel Rule for crypto transfers, 21 have legislated it without enforcement, 18 are in progress — and 106 have not implemented it at all.** Seven years after FATF extended Recommendation 16 to virtual assets, fewer than a quarter of tracked jurisdictions actually enforce it, keeping cross-border compliance obligations asymmetric: the same transfer can be fully regulated on one end and legally invisible on the other.

How many licensed crypto entities exist worldwide?

**Finding 9: Plexo's entity registry holds 44,177 licensed or registered VASP and crypto-entity records across 93 jurisdictions**, parsed directly from official registers (48,655 raw records before quality filtering; 7,798 flagged crypto-related). The largest sources are the US FinCEN MSB register (35,085 records), Canada's FINTRAC (2,991), and Poland's KNF (1,680). This is the licensing layer underneath the laws — where regulation stops being text and becomes a register you can count. **Finding 10: of 24 central bank digital currencies tracked, only 3 have launched.** Eleven sit in pilot, 3 in development, 6 in research, and 1 was cancelled. Against 33 stablecoin laws in 2025 alone, the contrast is the story: states are regulating private digital money much faster than they are issuing their own.

Methodology

The Index is computed from Plexo's production dataset: 207 jurisdiction profiles, 132 stablecoin laws, 81 stablecoin profiles with live market data (as of July 24, 2026), 44 issuer profiles with 74 license records, 44,177 entity records parsed from official registers, and 24 CBDC trackers. Jurisdiction stage classification (none / developing / in progress / live) is assigned per parsed national legislation and regulator guidance. Counts reflect what is parsed and verifiable in the registry — not estimates. Figures labeled "tracked" describe Plexo's coverage, not global totals. Last verified: July 28, 2026. Explore the underlying data: Stablecoin regulation hub · VASP registry.

Explore the stablecoin regulation dataset

Evidence And Sources

This raw HTML export preserves source visibility for crawler and contractor review. Indexing decision: index, follow.

1. Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 on markets in crypto-assets (MiCA) - EUR-Lex
2. GENIUS Act of 2025 (S.1582, 119th Congress) - U.S. Congress
3. Updated Guidance for a Risk-Based Approach to Virtual Assets and VASPs - FATF
4. EBA Euclid register of payment and electronic money institutions - European Banking Authority
5. MSB Registrant Search - FinCEN
6. Stablecoin market capitalization data (retrieved 2026-07-24) - CoinGecko

Internal Graph

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