Relying on just 1,000 wallets contributes to 85% of the trading volume! Stablecoin payments are more centralized than you think.

Research through on-chain data analysis reveals that stablecoin payments now account for nearly half of transaction volume, primarily driven by institutional and corporate transfers, with P2P only making up a small portion.

This report empirically examines the usage of stablecoins in payments, covering peer-to-peer (P2P), business-to-business (B2B), and transactions between individuals and enterprises (P2B/B2P).

By analyzing the on-chain data, we study transaction patterns involving stablecoin payments across P2P, B2B, and P2B/B2P categories. We utilize the Artemis dataset, which provides metadata for wallet addresses, including geographic location estimates, institutional ownership labels, and smart contract identifiers. Using features from sender and receiver wallets, we classify transactions. The focus is on the Ethereum network, which hosts approximately 52% of the global stablecoin supply.

Our primary focus is on two mainstream stablecoins: USDT and USDC, which together hold 88% of the market share. Despite increased adoption and regulatory attention over the past year, a key question remains: how does the actual usage of stablecoins in payments compare to other activities? This report aims to uncover the main drivers behind stablecoin payment adoption and provide insights for future trend predictions.

1. Background

In recent years, stablecoin adoption has grown significantly, with supply reaching $200 billion and monthly transfer volumes exceeding $4 trillion. Although blockchain networks offer fully transparent transaction records accessible for analysis, the anonymity of these networks and lack of information about transaction purposes (e.g., domestic payments, cross-border payments, trading) make user and transaction analysis challenging.

Furthermore, the use of smart contracts and automated trading on networks like Ethereum adds complexity, as a single transaction may involve interactions with multiple smart contracts and tokens. A critical unresolved issue is how to evaluate the proportion of stablecoin usage in payments relative to other activities such as trading. While many researchers are working to address this complex problem, this report offers additional methods to assess stablecoin usage, especially for payments.

Overall, there are two main approaches to estimating stablecoin usage (particularly in payments):

• The filtering approach, which uses raw blockchain transaction data and applies filtering techniques to remove noise for a more accurate estimate of stablecoin payment activity.
• Surveys of major stablecoin payment providers, using their disclosed payment data to estimate stablecoin activity.

Visa, in collaboration with Allium Labs, developed the Visa Onchain Analytics Dashboard, which employs the first approach. They filter out noise from raw data to provide clearer insights into stablecoin activity. Their analysis shows that after filtering, the total monthly stablecoin transaction volume drops from about $5 trillion (total transaction volume) to $1 trillion (adjusted transaction volume). Considering only retail transactions (single transactions under $250), the volume is about $6 billion. Our filtering method is similar to that of Visa Onchain Analytics Dashboard but focuses more on explicitly tagging transactions as payments.

The second approach, based on corporate surveys, has been applied in the “Fireblocks 2025 Stablecoin Status Report” and the “Zero-Based Stablecoin Payment Report.” These reports leverage disclosures from leading blockchain payment companies to estimate direct stablecoin usage in payments. Notably, the “Zero-Based Stablecoin Payment Report” provides an overall estimate of stablecoin payment transaction volume, categorizing these into B2B, B2C, P2P, etc. It shows that as of February 2025, the annual settlement volume is approximately $72.3 billion, mostly from B2B transactions.

This study’s main contribution is applying data filtering methods to estimate on-chain stablecoin payment usage. The results reveal usage patterns and provide more accurate estimates. Additionally, we offer guidance for researchers on how to process raw blockchain data with filtering techniques to reduce noise and improve estimates.

2. Data

Our dataset covers all stablecoin transactions on the Ethereum blockchain from August 2024 to August 2025. The focus is on transactions involving USDC and USDT, chosen for their high market share and price stability, which reduces noise in analysis. We only consider transfer transactions, excluding minting, burning, or cross-chain bridge transactions. Table 1 summarizes the overall dataset used for analysis.

Source: Artemis

3. Methods and Results

This section details the methods used to analyze stablecoin usage, focusing on payment transactions. First, we differentiate transactions involving interactions with smart contracts from those transferring between externally owned accounts (EOAs), classifying the latter as payment transactions. Details are in section 3.1. Then, section 3.2 explains how Artemis’s EOA label data is used to further categorize payment transactions into P2P, B2B, B2P, P2B, and internal B transactions. Finally, section 3.3 analyzes the concentration of stablecoin transactions.

3.1 Stablecoin Payments (EOA) vs. Smart Contract Transactions

In DeFi, many transactions involve interactions with smart contracts, often combining multiple financial operations in a single transaction, such as swapping tokens across multiple liquidity pools. This complexity makes it more difficult to analyze stablecoin usage solely for payment purposes.

To simplify analysis and improve the ability to tag stablecoin blockchain transactions as payments, we define stablecoin payments as any ERC-20 stablecoin transfer from one EOA address to another (excluding minting and burning). Transactions not marked as payments are classified as smart contract transactions, including all interactions with smart contracts (e.g., DeFi trades).

Figure 1 shows that most user-to-user payments (EOA-EOA) are direct, with each transaction hash corresponding to a single transfer. Some multi-EOA-EOA transfers within the same transaction hash are mainly performed via aggregators, indicating that the use of aggregators in simple transfers remains limited. In contrast, smart contract transactions show a different distribution, with more multi-transfer transactions, indicating that in DeFi operations, stablecoins often flow between different applications and routers, eventually returning to EOA accounts.

Source: Artemis

Note: The sample data for this analysis covers transactions from July 4, 2025, to July 31, 2025.

Table 2 and Figure 2 show that, in terms of transaction count, payments (EOA-EOA) and smart contract (DeFi) transactions are roughly 50:50, with smart contract transactions accounting for 53.2% of total volume. However, Figure 2 indicates that transaction volume (total transferred amount) is more volatile than transaction count, mainly driven by large institutional EOA-EOA transfers.

Source: Artemis

Source: Artemis

Figure 3 explores the distribution of transaction amounts for payments (EOA-EOA) and smart contract transactions. Both distributions resemble heavy-tailed normal distributions, with means around $100 to $1,000.

However, transactions below $0.1 show a significant peak, possibly indicating bot activity or manipulative behaviors related to fake or wash trading, consistent with descriptions by Halaburda et al. (2025) and Cong et al. (2023).

Since Ethereum’s gas fees often exceed $0.1, transactions below this threshold require further scrutiny and may be excluded from analysis.

Source: Artemis

Source: Artemis

Note: The data sample used for this analysis covers transactions from July 4, 2025, to July 31, 2025.

3.2 Payment Types

Using Artemis’s label data, we further analyze payments between two EOAs. Artemis provides labels for many Ethereum wallet addresses, enabling identification of wallets owned by institutions (e.g., Coinbase). We categorize payment transactions into five types: P2P, B2B, B2P, P2B, and internal B. Each category is described in detail below.

P2P Payments:

P2P (person-to-person) blockchain payments refer to transfers of funds directly from one user to another over the blockchain network. In account-based blockchains like Ethereum, P2P transactions are defined as digital assets moving from one user’s wallet (EOA) to another user’s EOA wallet. All transactions are recorded and validated on the blockchain without intermediaries.

Main Challenges:

Identifying whether transactions between two wallets in the account system truly occur between two independent entities (i.e., individuals rather than companies), and correctly classifying them as P2P, is a major challenge. For example, transfers between a user’s own accounts (Sybil accounts) should not be counted as P2P. However, if we simply define all EOA-to-EOA transactions as P2P, we may misclassify some transfers.

Another issue is that when an EOA wallet is owned by a company, such as a centralized exchange (CEX) like Coinbase, the wallet is not truly owned by a real individual. In our dataset, we can label many institutional and corporate EOAs; however, due to incomplete labeling, some company-owned but unlabeled EOAs may be misclassified as personal wallets.

Finally, this method cannot capture blockchain P2P payments facilitated via intermediaries—also called the “stablecoin sandwich” model. In this model, funds are transferred between users through intermediaries that settle on the blockchain. Specifically, fiat currency is sent to an intermediary, converted into crypto, transferred via blockchain, and then converted back to fiat by the recipient’s intermediary (which may be the same or different). The blockchain transfer is the “middle layer” of the sandwich, while fiat conversion is the “outer layer.” Identifying these transactions is challenging because they are executed by intermediaries, which may bundle multiple transactions to reduce gas costs. As a result, key data such as exact transaction amounts and involved users are often only available on the intermediary’s platform.

• B2B Payments: Business-to-business (B2B) transactions are electronic transfers on the blockchain from one company to another. In our dataset, stablecoin payments refer to transfers between two known institutional EOAs, e.g., from Coinbase to Binance.
• Internal B Payments: Transfers between two EOAs owned by the same institution are labeled as internal B transactions.
• P2B (or B2P) Payments: Transactions between individuals and companies, either from individual to enterprise (P2B) or from enterprise to individual (B2P), are electronic transfers that can be bidirectional.

Using this labeling approach, we analyze payment data (EOA-EOA transfers), with key results summarized in Table 3. The data shows that 67% of EOA-EOA transactions are P2P, but they only account for 24% of total payment volume. This further indicates that transfers by P2P users tend to be smaller than those by institutions. One of the largest categories in payment volume is internal B transactions, implying significant intra-organizational transfers. Exploring the specific implications of internal B transactions and how to incorporate them into payment activity analysis remains an interesting area for further research.

Source: Artemis

Finally, Figure 4 presents the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of transaction amounts by payment category. The CDF clearly shows that transaction amounts for most EOA-EOA accounts are below $0.1, supporting the idea that many of these transactions are driven by bots or manipulated wallets rather than genuine institutional activity. Additionally, the CDF for P2P transactions further supports the prevalence of small-value transactions, while B2B and internal B transactions tend to have significantly higher amounts. P2B and B2P transactions fall between P2P and B2B in the CDF.

Source: Artemis

Note: The data sample used for this analysis covers transactions from July 4, 2025, to July 31, 2025.

Figures 5 and 6 show the temporal trends of each payment category.

Figure 5 focuses on weekly changes, showing consistent adoption trends and weekly growth in payment volume across all categories. Table 4 further summarizes the overall changes from August 2024 to August 2025.

Additionally, Figure 6 illustrates differences between weekdays and weekends, with a noticeable decrease in payment volume during weekends. Overall, all categories show increasing usage over time on both weekdays and weekends.

Source: Artemis

Source: Artemis

Source: Artemis

3.3 Concentration of Stablecoin Transactions In Figure 9, we calculate the concentration of stablecoin senders on Ethereum. It is evident that most stablecoin transfer volume is concentrated among a small number of wallets. During our sample period, the top 1,000 wallets contributed approximately 84% of the transaction volume.

This indicates that, despite DeFi and blockchain aims to support decentralization, there remains a high degree of centralization in practice.

Source: Artemis

Note: The data sample used for this analysis covers transactions from July 4, 2025, to July 31, 2025.

4. Discussion

It is clear that stablecoin adoption is increasing over time, with transaction volume and count more than doubling from August 2024 to August 2025. Estimating stablecoin usage in payments is challenging, and more tools are being developed to improve this estimation. This study uses Artemis’s label data to explore and estimate stablecoin payment activity recorded on the Ethereum blockchain.

Our estimates suggest that stablecoin payments account for about 47% of total transaction volume (or 35% excluding internal B transactions). Given the limited classification of payments (mainly based on EOA-EOA transfers), this estimate can be considered an upper bound. Researchers can further refine estimates by applying filters such as transaction amount thresholds. For example, adding a minimum amount of $0.1 can exclude manipulative low-value transactions discussed in section 3.1.

In section 3.2, by further categorizing payment transactions into P2P, B2B, P2B, B2P, and internal B using Artemis labels, we find that P2P payments constitute only about 23.7% of total payments (all raw data) or 11.3% when excluding internal B transactions. Prior research indicated P2P payments account for roughly 25% of stablecoin payments, aligning with our findings.

Finally, in section 3.3, we observe that most stablecoin transaction volume is concentrated among the top 1,000 wallets. This raises an interesting question: is stablecoin usage driven by intermediaries and large companies as a payment tool, or is it developing as a P2P settlement mechanism? The answer will become clearer over time.

• This article is reprinted with permission from 《Deep潮 TechFlow》
• Original title: “An Empirical Analysis of Stablecoin Payment Usage on Ethereum”
• Original author: Artemis
• Translation: 《Deep潮 TechFlow》