SoK: Stablecoins for Digital Transformation -- Design, Metrics, and Application with Real World Asset Tokenization as a Case Study

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive framework for stablecoin design, evaluation, and application, emphasizing real-world asset tokenization as a case study, to advance trustworthy digital monetary infrastructure.

Contribution

It introduces a unified taxonomy, a stakeholder-focused evaluation framework, and reproducible methods linking stablecoins to sectoral digital transformation.

Findings

Developed a cross-disciplinary stablecoin taxonomy.

Created an open-source benchmarking pipeline.

Demonstrated stablecoins' role in real-world asset tokenization.

Abstract

Stablecoins have become a foundational component of the digital asset ecosystem, with their market capitalization exceeding 230 billion USD as of May 2025. As fiat-referenced and programmable assets, stablecoins provide low-latency, globally interoperable infrastructure for payments, decentralized finance, DeFi, and tokenized commerce. Their accelerated adoption has prompted extensive regulatory engagement, exemplified by the European Union's Markets in Crypto-assets Regulation, MiCA, the US Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act, GENIUS Act, and Hong Kong's Stablecoins Bill. Despite this momentum, academic research remains fragmented across economics, law, and computer science, lacking a unified framework for design, evaluation, and application. This study addresses that gap through a multi-method research design. First, it synthesizes cross-disciplinary literature to construct a taxonomy of stablecoin systems based on custodial structure, stabilization mechanism, and governance. Second, it develops a performance evaluation framework tailored to diverse stakeholder needs, supported by an open-source benchmarking pipeline to ensure transparency and reproducibility. Third, a case study on Real World Asset tokenization illustrates how stablecoins operate as programmable monetary infrastructure in cross-border digital systems. By integrating conceptual theory with empirical tools, the paper contributes: a unified taxonomy for stablecoin design; a stakeholder-oriented performance evaluation framework; an empirical case linking stablecoins to sectoral transformation; and reproducible methods and datasets to inform future research. These contributions support the development of trusted, inclusive, and transparent digital monetary infrastructure.