The Stablecoin Boom: Trading Volume Surpasses $35 Trillion, but Real-World Payments Remain at Only One Percent?

Original Article Title: Stablecoins in payments: What the raw transaction numbers miss

Original Article Author: Matt Higginson, McKinsey Financial Services

Original Article Translation: Web3 Xiaolu

We are often misled by the eye-catching stablecoin transaction volume in article headlines, immersed in the excitement of it surpassing V/M transactions, making "SWIFT replacement" dreams. When we compare stablecoin transaction volume to Visa/Mastercard, it's like comparing securities settlement volume to Visa/Mastercard, they are not comparable.

Although blockchain data shows a huge volume of stablecoin transactions, most of it is not real-world payments.

Currently, most stablecoin transaction volume comes from: 1) fund balances of trading platforms and custodians; 2) trades, arbitrage, liquidity loops; 3) smart contract mechanisms; 4) financial engineering.

The blockchain only shows the transfer of value, not why they are transferred. Therefore, we need to understand the fund flow used for payments behind stablecoins and the statistical logic. Thus, we have compiled the article "Stablecoins in payments: What the raw transaction numbers miss" by McKinsey & Artemis Analytics to help us dispel the payment fog of stablecoins and see the reality.

According to the analysis results from Artemis Analytics, the actual scale of stablecoin payments in 2025 is estimated to be around $390 billion, doubling from 2024.

It is important to note that actual stablecoin payments are much lower than the conventional estimates, but this does not diminish the long-term potential of stablecoins as a payment channel. Instead, it provides a clearer benchmark for assessing the current market situation and the necessary conditions for stablecoin scalability. At the same time, we can clearly see that stablecoins are a real presence in the payment field, growing, and in the early stages. The opportunity is enormous; it just needs the right measurement of these numbers.

I. Overall Stablecoin Transaction Volume

Stablecoins as a faster, cheaper, and programmable payment solution are increasingly gaining attention, with annual transaction volumes as high as $35 trillion reported by Artemis Analytics, Allium, RWA.xyz, Dune Analytics.

ARK Invest 2026 Big Ideas Data shows: As of December 2025, the 30-day moving average of adjusted stablecoin transaction volume was $3.5 trillion, 2.3 times the sum of Visa, PayPal, and remittances.

However, most of this transaction activity is not true end-user payments, such as payments to vendors or remittances. It mainly consists of trading, internal fund transfers, and automated blockchain activities.

To exclude noise and more accurately assess stablecoin payment volume, McKinsey partnered with leading blockchain analytics provider Artemis Analytics. The analysis results indicate:

Based on current transaction speeds (annualized figures based on December 2025 stablecoin payment activity), the actual annual stablecoin payment volume is approximately $390 billion, accounting for about 0.02% of the global payment volume.

This underscores the need for a more nuanced interpretation of data recorded on the blockchain and the necessity for financial institutions to make application-scenario-driven strategic investments to realize the long-term potential of stablecoins.

II. Strong Growth Expectations for Stablecoins

In recent years, the stablecoin market has expanded rapidly, with its circulating supply exceeding $300 billion, whereas in 2020, this number was less than $300 billion (DeFillma data).

Public market forecasts all indicate a strong expectation for the continued growth of the stablecoin market. On November 12 of last year, US Treasury Secretary Scott Besent stated at a bond market conference that stablecoin supply could reach $30 trillion by 2030.

Leading financial institutions have also made similar predictions, suggesting that by the same time, stablecoin supply will range from $2 trillion to $4 trillion. This growth expectation has greatly increased the focus of financial institutions on stablecoins, with many institutions exploring stablecoin applications in various payment and settlement scenarios.

When you filter out behaviors similar to payments, a very different picture emerges, with adoption being uneven. Typical scenarios include:

· Global Payroll and Cross-Border Remittances: Stablecoins have provided a highly attractive alternative to traditional remittance channels, enabling nearly instant cross-border fund transfers at very low costs. According to McKinsey's Global Payments Map data, the annualized payment volume of stablecoins in the global payroll and cross-border remittance field is approximately $90 billion. Based on McKinsey's Global Payments Map data, the overall transaction volume in this field reaches $1.2 trillion, with stablecoins accounting for less than 1%.

· Inter-Enterprise B2B Payments: Cross-border payments and international trade have long suffered from high fees and long settlement times. Stablecoins are well positioned to address these issues. Early-adopting enterprises are leveraging stablecoins to optimize supply chain payment processes, improve liquidity management, with small and medium-sized enterprises benefiting significantly. According to McKinsey's Global Payments Map data, the annualized volume of stablecoin-based inter-enterprise payments is about $22.6 trillion, while the overall global inter-enterprise payment volume is around $1.6 trillion, with stablecoins accounting for only about 0.01%.

· Capital Markets: Stablecoins are reshaping the capital market's settlement process by reducing counterparty risk and shortening settlement cycles. Tokenized funds issued by some asset management firms have already been able to automatically distribute dividends to investors using stablecoins or reinvest dividends in the fund without the need for bank transfers. This early application showcases how on-chain cash flows can streamline fund operations effectively. Data shows that the annualized settlement transaction volume of stablecoins in the 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, most of the actual stablecoin payment transactions are highly concentrated in Asia, with Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, among others, being at least one of the transaction channels. Global saturation has not yet been achieved.

While the market forecasts and early application scenarios have confirmed the significant development potential of stablecoins, they have also revealed a reality: there is still a significant gap between market expectations and what can be inferred solely from surface 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

III. Cautious Interpretation of Stablecoin Transaction Volume

Public blockchains have provided unprecedented transparency for transaction activities: every fund transfer is recorded on a shared ledger, allowing people to almost instantly track the flow of funds between wallets and various applications.

In theory, compared to traditional payment systems, this blockchain characteristic makes it easier for the market to assess the popularity of stablecoins—transaction data in traditional payment systems is scattered across various private networks, only revealing aggregated data, and some transactions may not be disclosed to the public at all.

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

Public blockchain transaction data can only reflect the amount of fund transfers but cannot show the underlying economic purpose. Therefore, the original stablecoin transaction volume on the blockchain actually includes various types of transaction behaviors, specifically:

· Cryptocurrency exchanges and custodial entities holding a large amount of stablecoin reserves and transferring funds between their own wallets;

· Smart contracts interacting automatically, leading to the repeated transfer of the same funds;

· Liquidity management, arbitrage, and fund flows related to trading;

· Protocol-level technical mechanisms that split a single operation into multiple on-chain operations, resulting in multiple blockchain transactions, inflating the total transaction volume.

These behaviors are a significant part of the on-chain ecosystem and are likely to further grow with the widespread adoption of stablecoins. However, from a traditional definition standpoint, most of these behaviors do not fall under the payment category. Summarizing and counting them directly without adjustments would obscure the true scale of stablecoin actual payment activities.

For financial institutions evaluating stablecoins, the implication is clear: publicly available raw transaction volume data can only serve as the starting point for analysis, cannot be equated to the level of stablecoin payment adoption, and should not be seen as the actual revenue-generating scale of stablecoin businesses.

IV. The Landscape of Stablecoin Payment Actual Scale

In an analysis conducted in collaboration with Artemis Analytics, a detailed breakdown analysis of stablecoin transaction data was carried out. The study focused on identifying transaction patterns that align with payment characteristics, including commercial fund transfers, settlements, salary payments, cross-border remittances, etc., while filtering out transaction data mainly revolving around trading, internal fund rebalancing in institutions, and automatic smart contract circular transfers.

The analysis results show: the actual scale of stablecoin payments in 2025 is approximately $390 billion, doubling from 2024. Although the stablecoin transaction volume's share in overall on-chain transactions and global payment volumes is still relatively low, this data is sufficient to confirm that stablecoins have formed a real and continuously growing demand in specific scenarios (see chart).

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

Our analysis yielded three key observations:

1. Clear Value Proposition. The increasing popularity of stablecoins is driven by their clear advantages over existing payment channels, such as faster settlement times, better liquidity management, and lower user experience friction. For example, we estimate that by 2026, bank card spending linked to stablecoins will grow to $45 billion, a 673% increase from 2024.

2. B2B Leads Growth. B2B payments dominate, with a volume of around $226 billion, accounting for approximately 60% of the global stablecoin payment volume. B2B payments have grown by 733% year-on-year, signaling rapid growth expected in 2026.

3. Highest Transaction Activity in Asia. Transaction activities across different regions and cross-border payment channels are not evenly distributed, indicating that transaction volumes will depend on local market structures and constraints. Stablecoin payments from Asia represent the largest source of transactions, with a volume of around $245 billion, accounting for 60% of the total. North America follows closely with a transaction volume of $95 billion, Europe ranks third at $50 billion. Transaction volumes from Latin America and Africa are both below $10 billion. Currently, transaction activity is largely being driven by payments from Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan.

Overall, the landing applications of stablecoins are gradually taking root in a few validated scenarios. The key to their broader scalable development lies in whether the patterns of these mature scenarios can be successfully extended and replicated in other regions.

Stablecoins have the substantial potential to reshape the payment system. The realization of this potential depends on continuous advancements in technology development, regulatory improvement, and market implementation. The scalable application requires clearer data analysis, more rational investment layouts, and the ability to discern effective signals and filter out invalid noise from public transaction data. For financial institutions, only by holding ambitious development goals, objectively understanding the current status of stablecoin transaction volumes, and steadily planning for future development opportunities can they seize the initiative in the next phase of stablecoin application and lead the industry forward.

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