Blockchain data shows that stablecoin transaction volume reaches as high as $35 trillion, but actual payments amount to only about $390 billion. Most transactions come from exchange capital balancing, arbitrage cycles, and smart contract mechanisms, with the true payment scale far below market expectations. However, growth potential remains worth attention. This article is based on an Artemis Analytics article, organized, compiled, and written by Web3 XiaoLv and PANews.
(Background: U.S. banks jointly submit a “Genius Act loophole” to Congress: stablecoin interest payments violate financial regulations, $6.6 trillion in deposits become “grey money”)
(Additional background: Financial black hole: stablecoins are devouring banks, reshaping the global financial structure)

Table of Contents

• 1. Overall transaction volume of stablecoins
• 2. Strong growth expectations for stablecoins
• 3. Cautious interpretation of stablecoin transaction volume
• 4. The realistic picture of stablecoin payments

We are often misled by sensational headlines about stablecoin transaction volumes, immersed in the excitement that they surpass V/M transaction volumes, dreaming of “cancelling plans, preparing to take the crown” to replace SWIFT. When comparing stablecoin transaction volume to Visa/Mastercard, it’s like comparing securities settlement capital to Visa/Mastercard—completely different scales.

Although blockchain data shows enormous stablecoin transaction volumes, most of these are not real-world payments.

Currently, most stablecoin transaction volumes come from:

1. Capital balancing of exchanges and custodians
2. Trading, arbitrage, liquidity cycles
3. Smart contract mechanisms
4. Financial adjustments

Blockchain only shows value transfers, not why they are transferred. Therefore, we need to clarify the actual payment-related capital chain behind stablecoins and the statistical logic. Based on this, we compiled the article “Stablecoins in payments: What the raw transaction numbers miss,” by McKinsey & Artemis Analytics, aiming to help us clear the fog of stablecoin payments and see the real truth.

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

It is important to clarify that actual stablecoin payments are far below conventional estimates, but this does not weaken stablecoins’ long-term potential as a payment channel. On the contrary, it provides a clearer benchmark for assessing the current market and the conditions needed for scalable development of stablecoins.

At the same time, we can also clearly see that: stablecoins in the payment field are real, growing, and still in the early stages. The opportunities are huge, but it is necessary to measure these numbers correctly.

1. Overall transaction volume of stablecoins

Stablecoins are increasingly attracting attention as a faster, cheaper, and programmable payment solution. According to reports from Artemis Analytics, Allium, RWA.xyz, Dune Analytics, their annual transaction volume reaches as high as $35 trillion.

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

However, most of these transactions 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 analytics provider Artemis Analytics. The analysis shows:

Based on current transaction 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 global payment volume.

This highlights the need for more detailed interpretation of blockchain-recorded data and for financial institutions to make strategic investments oriented toward application scenarios 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 (DeFillma data).

Public forecasts show strong expectations for continued growth in the stablecoin market. On November 12, last year, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated at a Treasury bond market conference that stablecoin supply could reach $3 trillion by 2030.

Major financial institutions have also made similar predictions, expecting stablecoin supply to be between $2 trillion and $4 trillion during the same period. This growth outlook has significantly increased financial institutions’ attention to stablecoins, with many exploring their applications in various payment and settlement scenarios.

When filtering behaviors similar to payments, a very different picture emerges, with uneven adoption scenarios, such as:

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

• 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 payment processes and improve liquidity management, especially benefiting small and micro enterprises. According to McKinsey’s data, the annualized scale of B2B stablecoin payments is about $226 billion, while the total global B2B payment scale is about $1.6 trillion, with stablecoins accounting for only about 0.01%.

• Capital markets: Stablecoins are reshaping settlement processes by reducing counterparty risk and shortening settlement cycles. Tokenized funds issued by some asset management firms can automatically distribute dividends to investors via stablecoins or reinvest dividends into funds without bank transfers. This early application demonstrates that on-chain cash flows can effectively simplify fund operations. Data shows that the annualized settlement transaction scale of stablecoins in capital markets is about $8 billion, while the global capital market settlement scale reaches $200 trillion; stablecoins account for less than 0.01%.

Currently, the basis cited to support the rapid adoption of stablecoins is mostly public transaction volume data, often assumed to reflect actual payment activity. But to determine whether these transactions are related to payment behavior, a deeper analysis of on-chain transaction content is necessary.

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

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

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

3. Cautious interpretation of stablecoin transaction volume

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

In theory, compared to traditional payment systems, this feature makes it more convenient to evaluate 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 externally at all.

However, in practice, the total transaction volume of stablecoins does not directly equal actual payment volume.

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

• Large holdings of stablecoins by crypto exchanges and custodians, with fund transfers between their wallets;
• Automated interactions via smart contracts, leading to repeated transfers of the same funds;
• Liquidity management, arbitrage, and related fund flows;
• Protocol-level mechanisms that split single operations into multiple on-chain transactions, increasing total transaction count.

These behaviors are essential parts of the on-chain ecosystem and are likely to grow further with the widespread adoption of stablecoins. But from a traditional perspective, most of these do not fall within the scope of payments. Summing them directly without adjustment would obscure the true scale of actual stablecoin payments.

This provides a clear lesson for financial institutions evaluating stablecoins:

Public raw transaction volume data can only serve as a starting point for analysis. It cannot be equated with the extent of stablecoin payment adoption, nor can it be regarded as the actual revenue generated by stablecoin businesses.

4. The realistic picture of stablecoin payments

In collaboration with Artemis Analytics, a detailed dissection of stablecoin transaction data was conducted. The focus was on identifying transaction patterns characteristic of payments, including commercial fund transfers, settlements, payroll, cross-border remittances, while excluding transactions mainly driven by trading, internal fund rebalancing, or automated smart contract cycles.

The analysis shows that in 2025, the actual scale of stablecoin payments is about $390 billion, doubling from 2024. Although stablecoin transaction volume still accounts for a relatively small proportion of overall on-chain transactions and global payments, this figure confirms that stablecoins have already formed real and continuously growing application demands in specific scenarios (see chart).

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

Our analysis yields three prominent observations:

2. 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, bank card spending linked to stablecoins will grow to $4.5 billion, a 673% increase over 2024.

3. B2B leads growth. B2B payments dominate, with an amount of about $226 billion, roughly 60% of total global stablecoin payments. B2B payments have grown by 733% year-over-year, indicating rapid growth expected by 2026.

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

Overall, these trends show that stablecoin applications are gradually taking root in proven scenarios. Whether they can achieve broader scale depends on whether these mature models can be successfully promoted and replicated elsewhere.

Stablecoins have substantive potential to reshape the payment system, but unlocking this potential requires continuous progress in technology R&D, regulatory improvements, and market deployment. Scaling applications demand 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, a realistic understanding of current stablecoin transaction scales, and steady deployment of future opportunities can they seize the first-mover advantage in the next phase of stablecoin application and lead industry development.