Clearing the fog of stablecoin payments: actual payments account for only 10% of total transaction volume

Article by: Artemis Analytics

Compiled by: Web3 Little Lawyer

We are often misled by the exaggerated trading volumes of stablecoins in article headlines, immersed in the excitement that they surpass V/M trading volumes, dreaming of “cancellation plans and championship wins” replacing SWIFT. When we compare stablecoin trading volumes to Visa/Mastercard, it’s like comparing securities settlement funds to Visa/Mastercard—completely incomparable.

Although blockchain data shows that stablecoins have enormous trading volumes, most of these are not real-world payments.

Currently, the majority of stablecoin trading volume comes from: 1) funds balancing in exchanges and custodians; 2) trading, arbitrage, liquidity cycles; 3) smart contract mechanisms; 4) financial adjustments.

Blockchain only shows the transfer of value, not the reasons behind these transfers. Therefore, we need to clarify the actual payment-related fund flows behind stablecoins and understand the statistical logic. Based on this, we have compiled the article Stablecoins in payments: What the raw transaction numbers miss, by McKinsey & Artemis Analytics, aiming to help us cut through the payment fog of stablecoins and see the real truth.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stablecoins-payments-what-raw-transaction-numbers-4qjke/?trackingId=tjIPCCnHTE6N72YmfMWHVA%3D%3D

According to Artemis Analytics’ analysis: the actual scale of stablecoin payments in 2025 is approximately $390 billion, doubling from 2024.

It is important to clarify that actual stablecoin payments are far below conventional estimates, but this does not diminish the long-term potential of stablecoins as a payment channel. On the contrary, it provides a clearer benchmark for assessing the current market situation and the conditions needed for scalable development of stablecoins. At the same time, we can clearly see that stablecoins are real, growing, and still in the early stages in the payments field. The opportunities are huge, but it requires correct measurement of these figures.

1. Overall Stablecoin Trading Volume

As a faster, cheaper, and programmable payment solution, stablecoins are increasingly gaining attention. According to reports from Artemis Analytics, Allium, RWA.xyz, and Dune Analytics, their annual trading volume reaches up to $35 trillion.

Data from ARK Invest’s 2026 Big Ideas show that in December 2025, the 30-day moving average of adjusted stablecoin trading volume was $3.5 trillion, 2.3 times the combined total of Visa, PayPal, and remittance services.

However, most of these trading activities are not actual end-user payments, such as payments to suppliers or remittances. They mainly include trading, internal fund transfers, and automated blockchain activities.

To eliminate interference and more accurately assess stablecoin payment volume, McKinsey collaborated with leading blockchain analysis provider Artemis Analytics. The analysis shows:

Based on current trading speeds (annualized figures based on stablecoin payment activity in December 2025), the actual stablecoin payment volume per year is about $390 billion, accounting for roughly 0.02% of the total global payments.

This highlights the need for more detailed interpretation of on-chain data and for financial institutions to adopt application-driven strategic investments to realize the long-term potential of stablecoins.

2. Strong Growth Expectations for Stablecoins

In recent years, the stablecoin market has expanded rapidly, with circulating supply surpassing $300 billion, whereas in 2020, this figure was less than $30 billion (DeFillama data).

Public forecasts consistently show strong expectations for continued growth in the stablecoin market. In November 2022, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated at a Treasury market conference that stablecoin supply could reach $3 trillion by 2030.

Leading financial institutions have made similar predictions, estimating stablecoin supply to be between $2 trillion and $4 trillion during the same period. These growth expectations have significantly increased financial institutions’ attention to stablecoins, with many exploring their applications across various payment and settlement scenarios.

When you filter out behaviors similar to payments, a very different picture emerges. Adoption is uneven, with typical scenarios as follows:

• Global payroll and cross-border remittances: Stablecoins offer an attractive alternative to traditional remittance channels, enabling near-instant cross-border transfers at very low costs. According to McKinsey’s global payments landscape data, the annualized payment scale in global payroll and cross-border remittances is about $90 billion. The overall transaction volume in this area is approximately $1.2 trillion, with stablecoins accounting for less than 1%.

• Business-to-Business (B2B) payments: Cross-border payments and international trade have long suffered from high fees and long settlement cycles. Stablecoins can address these issues. Early adopters are using stablecoins to optimize supply chain payments and improve liquidity management, especially benefiting small and micro-enterprises. According to McKinsey’s data, the annualized B2B stablecoin payment volume is about $22.6 trillion, while the total global B2B payment volume is around $1.6 trillion, meaning stablecoins account for only about 0.01%.

• Capital markets: Stablecoins are reshaping settlement processes by reducing counterparty risk and shortening settlement cycles. Some tokenized funds issued by asset managers have already achieved automatic dividend distribution to investors via stablecoins or reinvestment into funds without bank transfers. This early application demonstrates that on-chain cash flows can significantly simplify fund operations. Data shows that the annualized settlement transaction volume in capital markets is about $8 billion, while the total global capital market settlement volume is $200 trillion, with stablecoins accounting for less than 0.01%.

Currently, the basis for supporting rapid stablecoin adoption is mostly public data on stablecoin trading volumes, often assumed to reflect actual payment activity. However, to determine whether these transactions are related to payments, a deeper analysis of the actual on-chain transaction content is necessary.

(https://x.com/artemis/status/2014742549236482078)

Most genuine stablecoin payment transactions today are highly concentrated in Asia, with Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan at least being one of the main channels. Global saturation has not yet been achieved.

While the above market forecasts and early application scenarios confirm the huge potential of stablecoins, they also reveal a reality: there remains a significant gap between market expectations and the actual situation inferred solely from surface-level transaction data.

McKinsey & Company, Global Payments Map

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/how-we-help-clients/gci-analytics/our-offerings/global-payments-map

3. Cautious Interpretation of Stablecoin Transaction Volumes

Public blockchains provide unprecedented transparency for transaction activities: every fund transfer is recorded on a shared ledger, allowing near real-time insight into fund flows between wallets and various applications.

In theory, compared to traditional payment systems, this feature makes it easier to assess the adoption level of stablecoins—since transaction data in traditional systems is dispersed across private networks, only aggregated data is disclosed, and some transactions are not disclosed at all.

However, in practice, the total transaction volume of stablecoins on public blockchains does not directly equate to actual payment volume.

Public blockchain transaction data only reflects the amount of funds transferred, not the underlying economic purpose. Therefore, the raw stablecoin transaction volume on-chain includes various types of transactions, such as:

• Large holdings of stablecoins by cryptocurrency exchanges and custodians, transferring funds between their own wallets;
• Automated interactions via smart contracts, causing the same funds to be repeatedly transferred;
• Liquidity management, arbitrage, and related fund flows;
• Protocol-level mechanisms that split single operations into multiple on-chain steps, generating multiple blockchain transactions and inflating total volume.

These behaviors are integral to the on-chain ecosystem and are likely to grow further with widespread stablecoin adoption. However, from a traditional perspective, most of these do not qualify as payments. Simply aggregating these without adjustment would obscure the true scale of stablecoin payments.

This provides a clear insight for financial institutions:

Public raw transaction volume data can only serve as a starting point for analysis. It should not be equated with the level of stablecoin payment adoption nor considered as the actual revenue potential of stablecoin businesses.

4. The Actual Picture of Stablecoin Payment Scale

In collaboration with Artemis Analytics, a detailed dissection of stablecoin transaction data was conducted. The focus was on identifying transaction patterns consistent with payments, including business fund transfers, settlement, payroll, and cross-border remittances, while excluding transactions mainly involving trading, internal fund rebalancing, or automated contract cycles.

The analysis shows that in 2025, the actual scale of stablecoin payments will be about $390 billion, doubling from 2024. Although stablecoin transaction volumes still represent a small proportion of overall on-chain transactions and global payments, this figure confirms that stablecoins have already established real and growing application demand in specific scenarios (see chart).

(Stablecoins in payments: What the raw transaction numbers miss)

Our analysis yields three key observations:

1. Clear value proposition. Stablecoins are becoming increasingly popular because they offer obvious advantages over existing payment channels, such as faster settlement, better liquidity management, and lower user friction. For example, we estimate that by 2026, card spending linked to stablecoins will grow to $4.5 billion, a 673% increase over 2024.

2. B2B leads growth. B2B payments dominate, with an estimated volume of about $2.26 trillion, roughly 60% of total stablecoin payments. B2B payments have grown by 733% year-over-year, indicating rapid growth expected by 2026.

3. Asia is the most active region. Transaction activity varies across regions and cross-border channels, depending on local market structures and constraints. Stablecoin payments from Asia are the largest, with about $245 billion, accounting for 60% of total. North America follows with $95 billion, and Europe ranks third with $50 billion. Latin America and Africa each have less than $1 billion. Currently, almost all transaction activity is driven by payments from Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan.

From these trends, it’s clear that stablecoin applications are gradually taking root in verified scenarios. Whether they can achieve broader, scalable adoption depends on whether these mature models can be successfully promoted and replicated elsewhere.

Stablecoins have substantial potential to reshape the payment system, but unlocking this potential requires ongoing technological development, regulatory improvements, and market implementation. Scaling applications will need clearer data analysis, more rational investment strategies, and the ability to identify valid signals and filter out noise from public transaction data. For financial institutions, only with ambitious development goals, an objective understanding of current stablecoin transaction scales, and steady strategic deployment can they seize opportunities in the next phase of stablecoin application and lead industry growth.