Stablecoins have surged from niche crypto instruments to mainstream payment tools, processing $33 trillion in 2025, more than Visa and Mastercard combined, and reshaping how businesses handle cross-border transactions.
Once seen as a niche tool for crypto traders, stablecoins are now processing a staggering $33 trillion in on-chain transactions, overtaking the combined volume of Visa and Mastercard for the first time, according to a study by Artemis Analytics and first reported by Bloomberg. Their use is also expanding in the real economy, especially in business-to-business (B2B) payments.
What are stablecoins, and why do they matter?
Stablecoins are digital tokens that aim to keep their value steady, usually by being backed one-to-one by cash or government bonds. Unlike cryptocurrencies Bitcoin or Ethereum, whose prices can swing significantly, stablecoins are designed to be stable. This stability makes them suitable for payments, remittances, payroll, and even as a store of value in countries with volatiles currencies.
But stablecoins are not limited to functioning as digital cash. They run on public blockchains like Ethereum, Tron, and Binance Smart Chain, which means they can be sent anywhere in the world, 24/7, with near-instant (in most cases) settlement and low fees. For businesses, this creates additional options for cross-border payments: paying suppliers overseas without waiting days for a wire transfer, settling invoices in seconds, and managing treasury operations with a level of transparency and programmability.
Stablecoins overtake card giants
In a report by Artemis Anaytics and Dune titled: The State of Stablecoins 2025: Supply, Adoption & Market Trends, they said that in 2025, stablecoins processed $33 trillion in on-chain volume, surpassing Visa and Mastercard combined. By August 2025, monthly transaction volume had crossed $1.25 trillion, with over 30 million active wallets, a 53% jump from the previous year. CoinGecko also reported that the total market capitalisation of stablecoins hit $312 billion by the end of 2025, up from just $5 billion in 2020.
But it’s not just about raw volume. When excluding trading, internal transfers, and automated activity, the real-economy use of stablecoins—actual payments for goods, services, payroll, and remittances—has more than doubled in the past year. According to a joint study by McKinsey and Artemis Analytics, true stablecoin payments reached about $390 billion in 2025, with business-to-business (B2B) payments making up $226 billion, or 60% of the total.
B2B stablecoin payments
Perhaps the clearest shift has been in business-to-business (B2B). In early 2023, B2B stablecoin payments were under $100 million per month. By mid-2025, they had soared past $3 billion per month. Annualised, that’s $226 billion in B2B flows, now representing the 60% of identifiable real-economy stablecoin activity according to McKinsey.
What’s driving this growth? For many businesses, especially those operating across borders, stablecoins offer a way to reduce reliance on the delays, fees, and complexities of traditional banking rails. International supplier payments that once took days can now settle faster, with fees that can fall below 0.1%, which is a fraction of the 1.5–3% charged by traditional cross-border payment system.
It’s important to note that not all stablecoin transaction volume reflects real economic activity. Much of the headline volume includes trading, internal transfers, and automated activity. Leading analytics firms like Artemis, McKinsey, and Chainalysis use a mix of on-chain tagging, transaction size filtering, and cross-referencing with known payment infrastructure to estimate true payment volumes. Analytics firms use on-chain tagging, transaction size filters, and payment infrastructure mapping to distinguish genuine payments from trading activity.
For B2B payments, only about 20% of tagged volume is considered genuine business payments, with the rest attributed to trading or internal movements. Card-linked payments are easier to track, as they use dedicated smart contracts. Remittances and peer-to-peer flows are estimated using exchange data and adjusted for likely over-reporting.
A recent survey by EY-Parthenon found that 41% of corporate stablecoin users reported cost savings of at least 10%, mainly in cross-border supplier payments. Even more telling, 77% of corporate users cited supplier payments as their main use case for stablecoins.
Cost, speed, and simplicity are driving the switch
For many companies, the appeal of stablecoins boils down to three things: lower costs, faster settlement, and simpler operations. Traditional cross-border payments can take days, involve multiple banks, and rack up fees at every step. Stablecoins reduce the number of intermediaries, settling payments directly on the blockchain.
In the 2025 survey of 350 executives by EY-Parthenon, participants said that their reason for using stablecoins are driven by reduced transaction costs (cited by 52% of respondents), faster cross-border payments (45%), and 24/7 settlement and liquidity (34%).
Supplier payments are the standout use case, with 77% of corporate users naming it as their top reason for adopting stablecoins. Other popular uses include accepting cross-border payments from business partners, managing liquidity and treasury, and even paying employees in regions with volatile currencies.
Stablecoin uses in the current landscape
- Supplier Payments: Multinational firms are using stablecoins to pay overseas suppliers, especially in regions where access to US dollars is limited or where banking access is constrained. For example, fast-moving consumer goods companies have reported that distributors in Africa and Asia now prefer stablecoins for settling invoices, as they can access them easier than dollars.
- Treasury Management: Firms like Standard Chartered and MoneyGram are exploring stablecoins to streamline cross-border treasury operations, reduce pre-funding requirements, and manage liquidity more efficiently.
- Payroll and Gig Economy: Companies such as Scale AI and Bitwage offer overseas contractors the option to be paid in stablecoins, ensuring timely, stable-value payments regardless of local currency swings.
- Remittances: In remittance-heavy market such as the Philippines, stablecoins are being used to send funds home, bypassing expensive and slow traditional channels. Local wallets like GCash now support USDC, making digital dollars accessible to millions.
- Merchant Payments: Platforms like Stripe have launched stablecoin financial accounts in over 100 countries, allowing businesses to hold, send, and receive stablecoins alongside traditional currencies.
Behind the scenes, a complex web of blockchains, issuers, and payment platforms powers the stablecoin boom. The two biggest stablecoins by market capitalization, Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, together account for over two-thirds of the market, with USDT leading in retail and emerging markets, and USDC favoured by institutions and regulated platforms.
Tron, Ethereum, and Binance Smart Chain are the main networks for stablecoin settlement. Tron, in particular, has become the workhorse for high-volume, low-cost transfers, especially in Asia and emerging markets, processing over $3.3 trillion in stablecoin transactions in 2025 alone according to reports by CoinMarketCap and Coindesk. Ethereum remains the hub for DeFi and institutional flows, while Binance Smart Chain and newer networks like Aptos and Solana are carving out their own niches.
Card-linked stablecoin payments are also on the rise. Visa and Mastercard have both launched pilots and partnerships to enable stablecoin-backed cards, allowing users to spend stablecoins at millions of merchants worldwide. In 2025, card-linked stablecoin payments topped $13.2 billion in annual volume, and Visa’s stablecoin settlement pilot reached a $3.5 billion annualised run rate.
The GENIUS Act and MiCA supported stablecoin growth
One of the biggest hurdles to mainstream adoption has been regulatory uncertainty. That changed in 2025, when the US passed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act), and the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) came into full force.
The GENIUS Act sets out clear rules for who can issue stablecoins in the US, how they must be backed (1:1 with cash or short-term Treasuries), and what disclosures are required. It prohibits issuers from paying interest to holders, brings stablecoins under the Bank Secrecy Act for anti-money laundering compliance, and gives federal and state regulators oversight depending on the size of the issuer. The Act also clarifies that compliant stablecoins are neither securities nor commodities, removing years of legal ambiguity.
MiCA, meanwhile, imposes strict requirements on stablecoin issuers in the EU, including full reserve backing, monthly audits, and limits on the scale of large tokens to protect monetary sovereignty. It distinguishes between electronic money tokens (EMTs) pegged to a single currency and asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) pegged to baskets of assets, and bans algorithmic stablecoins altogether.
While both frameworks aim to protect consumers and ensure financial stability, they differ in key ways. The GENIUS Act is more flexible on reserve composition and allows for state-level regulation of smaller issuers, while MiCA is stricter on reserve segregation, reporting, and cross-border recognition. While both frameworks aim to protect consumers and ensure financial stability, they differ in reserve requirements and oversight, creating a patchwork global compliance landscape. For global businesses, this means navigating a patchwork of rules and often building to the highest common standard.
Far from being left behind, banks and financial institutions are jumping into the stablecoin game. In Europe, ClearBank has partnered with Circle to roll out MiCA-compliant stablecoins (USDC and EURC) via the Circle Mint platform, giving clients instant access to regulated digital dollars and euros. Swiss banks are piloting a franc-pegged stablecoin, and major US banks are exploring joint stablecoin projects to compete with fintechs and big techs.
Payment giants like Stripe have launched stablecoin financial accounts in over 100 countries, letting businesses hold, send, and receive stablecoins alongside traditional currencies. Visa and Mastercard are integrating stablecoin settlement into their networks, and fintechs like Reap and Rain are building B2B payment platforms around stablecoin rails.
For banks, the appeal is clear: stablecoins offer a way to modernise cross-border payments, reduce settlement risk, and tap into new revenue streams. A 2025 survey by Ernst & Young found that 79% of financial institutions plan to leverage third parties for stablecoin infrastructure, and 57% intend to explore new stablecoin offerings in the next year.
Forecasts for stablecoin’s future
The future looks even bigger. Morph, a secure settlement layer for global crypto payments, projects that stablecoin settlement volume could exceed $50 trillion by 2026, up from $33 trillion in 2025. Chainalysis forecasts that stablecoin flows could reach $56.6 trillion by 2030 and potentially $1.5 quadrillion by 2035, driven by generational wealth transfer and the rise of AI-driven payments.
By 2030, stablecoins could account for 5–10% of all global cross-border payments, with market capitalisation surpassing $1.9 trillion. Citi’s base case projects a $1.9 trillion stablecoin market by 2030, with a bull case of $4 trillion.
As more merchants accept stablecoins, and as regulatory clarity spreads, the line between traditional and digital payments will blur. Stablecoins are on track to become a core layer of global financial infrastructure, powering everything from supplier payments and remittances to payroll, treasury, and even AI-driven commerce.
Stablecoins are here to stay
Stablecoins have now secured its place as a central player in global payments. With $33 trillion in annual volume, over $6 billion in monthly B2B payments, and forecasts stretching into the quadrillions, stablecoins are now way past the question of “will it last?”
For companies, the message is simple: those who build stablecoin capabilities today will hold a cost and speed advantage over those tied to legacy rails. For banks and fintechs, the opportunity lies in bridging the gap between traditional and digital finance, offering clients faster, cheaper, and more transparent payment solutions.
As AI agents begin to transact, as regulatory clarity spreads, and as more merchants and suppliers embrace digital dollars, stablecoins are set to become the backbone of the next era of global commerce.
