SEI rides Wyoming stablecoin pilot progress to 15.6% gain

Sei Network’s native token SEI surged more than 15% in the last 24 hours, following the Wyoming Stable Token Commission’s announcement that the layer-1 blockchain was one of two finalists selected for the state’s USD-backed stablecoin pilot.

The price rally brought SEI to over $0.21, up from intraday lows of around $0.182 earlier in the day.

The Wyoming Stable Token (WYST) initiative, which launched testing in March 2025, evaluated several blockchain platforms to host the state’s planned stablecoin. The measured criteria included infrastructure maturity, system uptime, user base strength, and transaction throughput.

On Thursday, the commission narrowed the list of more than ten candidate blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Base, down to just two, Sei and Aptos.

According to a breakdown shared by a user affiliated with Sei on social media platform X, the final scoring rubric used by the commission awarded Sei 30 points, topping Avalanche (27), Sui (26), Ethereum (26), and Base (25). 

Algorand and Ripple scored lower, at 21 and 24 points respectively..

Trading volumes surge after Wyoming milestone 

After the news of the network’s selection broke, the token’s price spiked more than 10% over the course of the day, accompanied by a 91% jump in trading volume, which reached $175 million. The market capitalization for SEI rose past the $1 billion mark.

Chart data from CoinGecko shows a steady build-up in price through the early hours of yesterday, with a marked breakout just after 09:00 UTC as the Wyoming selection news began circulating. By midday, SEI had surged past $0.215 before settling slightly lower, still up significantly on the day. 

SEI remains well below its all-time high of $1.14 set in March 2024, but the recent upward price action suggests bulls are taking control of the market. The token’s rebound follows months of price suppression, which saw SEI drop to $0.17 by the end of Q1 2025.

According to a March 26 report by Bloomberg, Wyoming could launch its own fiat-backed cryptocurrency as early as July. If the plan materializes, it will become the first US state to issue a fully reserved stable token.

Governor Mark Gordon confirmed the timeline during remarks at the DC Blockchain Summit, stating, “I don’t think there’s any banks that have been really eager, right? To jump in.” 

He recalled a conversation with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, saying, “If you’re gonna do something, you should really do it in Wyoming, because we have a framework to do it.”

US Treasuries, cash, and repurchase agreements will fully back the proposed Wyoming Stable Token (WYST). State law mandates a minimum capitalization of 102%. 

Sei’s DeFi ecosystem spells maturation

According to DeFiLlama, total value locked (TVL) on the network now exceeds $1.07 billion, with stablecoin market cap reaching $217.58 million. The first quarter of 2025 saw TVL in USD terms grow 73.7% to $363.1 million, while TVL denominated in SEI jumped a staggering 299% to 2.11 billion SEI.

Its DeFi diversity score, defined by the number of protocols comprising 90% of total TVL, rose from 4 to 6 in Q1 2025, indicating that capital is spreading across more applications rather than being concentrated in a few dominant platforms.

Average daily decentralized exchange (DEX) volume declined 18% quarter-on-quarter to $16.1 million but held steady relative to elevated levels seen in late 2024. Sailor is the leading DEX by volume, gaining market share from competitors like DragonSwap, Uniswap, and Jellyverse.

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