Bank of Italy Study Finds Stablecoin Remittances Lack Consistency in Savings

The Bank of Italy has published a study that challenges one of the crypto industry's most common narratives. The research paper, titled 'Are Stablecoins Efficient for Remittances? Evidence from a Mystery Shopping Exercise,' evaluated real USDC transfers across 10 international payment corridors.

To assess stablecoin remittances under real market conditions, researchers carried out 200 USDC transfers between Italy and five countries: Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan. The study divided every transaction into five stages: funding an exchange account, purchasing USDC, transferring funds on-chain, selling USDC, and withdrawing local currency.

The findings suggest that while blockchain transfers themselves remain inexpensive and relatively fast, the overall efficiency of stablecoin remittances is still largely determined by fiat conversion costs and the quality of local payment infrastructure. In fact, total transfer costs ranged from 0.30% to 8.96%, with the blockchain transaction itself representing only a small fraction of the overall expense.

Compared with World Bank average remittance costs, stablecoin transfers generally performed well. For example, Brazil's average remittance cost stood at 9.96%, compared with 2.21% for the USDC route. However, against Wise, the results were more mixed, with stablecoins proving cheaper in only three of the eight comparable corridors.

The study concluded that stablecoins should not automatically be viewed as a cheaper alternative for international remittances. Instead, their competitiveness depends on the specific payment corridor, exchange pricing, funding methods, and the quality of local financial infrastructure.