Stablecoin Payments from the Ground Up
Stablecoins are an emerging alternative to major payments and settlement networks globally. The supply of stablecoins is around $300 billion, having grown from under $10 billion five years ago. Approximately 10 million blockchain addresses make a stablecoin transaction every day.
The vast majority (>99 percent) of stablecoins reference the dollar, and accordingly are backed by US dollar instruments. If they were considered a nation, stablecoins would be the 14th largest holder of sovereign US debt. It’s no wonder that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said, “We are going to keep the U.S. the dominant reserve currency in the world, and we will use stablecoins to do that.” The Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee estimates that the supply of stablecoins will grow to $2 trillion by 2028.
It’s well understood that stablecoins have graduated from merely being a tool used by crypto traders and exchanges to conveniently move money around without relying on banks, to a more widely used tool for consumer and enterprise payments. M However, specific data on stablecoin payments has historically been sparse, and estimates have generally been made on a top-down basis, by looking at all stablecoin transactions on chain and attempting to net out sources of noise. These are naturally incomplete. Last year, Artemis, Castle Island, and Visa published a survey of five emerging market countries in an attempt to understand how ordinary stablecoin users engage with stablecoins in their economic lives. But specific data regarding known stablecoin payment volumes does not exist. To this end, this study presents a novel dataset assembled from 33 stablecoin-based payment firms which process transactions on behalf of end users.
This study has been published by Artemis, Dragonfly, and Castle Island Ventures.