A stablecoin peg is the target price a stablecoin is designed to hold. For the vast majority of stablecoins, this target is one U.S. dollar. Stablecoins maintain that price through two mechanisms. The first is reserves or collateral that give each token its underlying value; the second is an arbitrage process that returns the market price to the peg whenever it deviates from it.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at each method and the major stablecoins that make use of each.
What is a Stablecoin Peg?
A stablecoin peg is the reference price a stablecoin is designed to track. A U.S. Dollar stablecoin tracks one USD, a Euro stablecoin tracks one Euro, most gold-pegged stablecoins track one troy ounce of physical gold, and so on. For the purposes of this article, we’ll mostly be discussing USD-pegged stablecoins, the largest variety by far with over 98% of the total market share as of mid-2026.
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