Stablecoin Insights from a Crypto Power User: Rektdiomedes, Founder of The Daily Degen

Main Takeaways:

• Stablecoins are solving real payment problems today: From payroll to cross-border investing, stables deliver faster, cheaper, and more reliable transfers compared to legacy rails or bank wires.
• Stablecoin growth is inevitable and massive: Rektdiomedes expects the total market cap to reach $2–3T within the next few years, cementing the dollar’s dominance and creating new demand for U.S. Treasuries.
• DeFi rails are positioned to replace TradFi infrastructure: Lending, yield, and payments are moving on-chain, with protocols like Aave, Pendle, Ethena, and Maple showing how superior alternatives can scale.
• Crypto-native data and networks set the pace: Platforms like DefiLlama and the constant flow of insights on Twitter are where stablecoin adoption trends are spotted first.
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This interview features Rektdiomedes, a long-time participant of the crypto ecosystem who created The Daily Degen newsletter and is very active on X/Twitter. The Daily Degen newsletter recaps the biggest stories in crypto each day, while also highlighting important metrics and new projects to watch.

The newsletter now reaches over 27,000 daily readers, and Rektdiomedes recently surpassed 100,000 followers on X. In this interview, he shares a unique perspective on the stablecoin space, shaped by years of living and breathing crypto.

Rektdiomedes' Background and Experience

Q: What was the moment that “flipped the switch” for you in crypto?

I was tangentially involved with crypto as far back as 2016, and owned a tiny bit of Bitcoin at the time. I followed the space but honestly mostly faded it. What finally flipped the switch for me personally was DeFi - and the explosion of interest in it in 2021. I had always been a big numbers geek and used to invest in and flip seller financing notes in real estate, so all the geeky stuff about arbitraging rates and yields appealed to me immensely.

I started watching all of Taiki Maeda's early videos, Ceazor's Snack Sandwich, and Noah Seidman and went down the rabbit hole on everything DeFi. I had a giant spreadsheet of all my various DeFi positions and was obsessed with 'yield farming'. Completely obsessed. I ultimately decided that if I was that interested in it and passionate about it I should probably go ahead and dedicate a few years of my life to it... so in December of 2021 I shut down the business I owned at that time and transitioned 100% to crypto.

Q: Do you have any stories or instances of a stablecoin breakthrough that hits close to home?

Yes - in the prior business I owned before diving into crypto full-time (a web2 digital marketing business) we employed Filipino virtual assistants, and I vividly remember all the immense headaches that arose from trying to pay them via Payoneer, Wise, and PayPal. There would always be problems with these platforms and I'd have to email back and forth with them or sometimes even spend hours on the phone dealing with it. All of those man-hours add up and I remember the first time I paid one of them on the blockchain using stables it was like a eureka moment. Like oh my god this is literally 1000x better.

I also remember doing some non-crypto private placement investing a few years ago in Canadian companies. The logistical onus involved in getting wet signatures and bank wires blew my mind. Not only that, but I also ate the spread between USD and CAD on the wire transfer. It was horrifying when I knew at the same time that the whole thing could be done instantly and with zero fees via crypto.

Q: What areas of crypto are you most bullish on right now?

More than anything I am bullish on DeFi and anything stablecoin-related. I think stablecoins are set to utterly explode in market cap and significance in the coming years. I believe DeFi rails are vastly superior to TradFi ones and will ultimately replace the existing ones entirely.

Therefore I am extremely bullish on anything related to those areas. My passion is primarily in the on-chain world, and I am enormously positive about projects like Aave, Pendle, Ethena, and Maple Finance. I actually work with the Maple team and am incredibly bullish on them especially.

Q: What are your go-to resources for tracking stablecoin data and keeping up with the fast-moving stablecoin sector?

My number one resource for analytics is DefiLlama. And then beyond that I rely on lots of my smart friends on Twitter and reading their content (and/or watching their videos). People like @phtevenstrong, @Nomaticcap, @patfscott, and @kenodnb are all invaluable resources to name a few, and I could probably list 100 more easily. The wealth of information on Twitter (and YouTube to a lesser extent but mostly Twitter) is just unbelievable.

Insights and Predictions Around Stablecoin Adoption

Q: What is your boldest prediction for the next 2-3 years in the world of stablecoins?

I think that stablecoins will hit a $2-3T market cap before the end of the current Trump administration. Scott Bessent (the current Treasury Secretary) has thrown out similar numbers, and made clear that they want stablecoins to grow massively in size.

This makes perfect sense as it will help cement the dollar's role as the reserve currency worldwide, and also provide a large demand source for U.S. Treasuries. It is all eminently logical as far as I am concerned, and it boggles my mind that some of these TradFi curmudgeon types are still disbelievers.
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Q: How do you go about explaining stablecoins to the everyday person?

I think the basic idea of stablecoins is pretty easy to understand for them, but it's more a challenge of correcting misperceptions or otherwise explaining all the nuances regarding the different kinds of stablecoins and how they are backed. Ultimately I think we will see full stablecoin adoption without everyday folks having to worry too much about that stuff.

Q: What’s a headline/story you’d love to embed in the Daily Degen in the future that would signal real progress for stablecoins?

In the short term, I look forward to stablecoins hitting the trillion dollar mark in total circulating supply/market cap, which I believe will happen within the next 1-2 years.

In the medium term, I hope to see DeFi tokens like $SYRUP, $PENDLE, $ENA, and $AAVE all have the $10B+ market caps they deserve (based on the current market caps of similarly sized banking institutions + their current growth curve).

Looking farther out, I look forward to the day that the outdated TradFi rails we grew up with have been FULLY deprecated and replaced by the superior tech that is crypto. This will likely take decades rather than years, but I am 100% confident it will come to fruition :)