Stablecoin Adoption Hinges on Bank-Level Safeguards, Visa Report Finds

Visa's latest report on cross-border payments found that Americans are more willing to use stablecoins for international transactions if they come with bank-level safeguards. In a hypothetical scenario where stablecoins had such protections, the share of U.S. respondents who said they'd use them jumped from 36% to 56%. The survey also showed that awareness about stablecoins is low: 56% of Americans have never heard of them.

When offered through an existing financial provider, interest in using stablecoins rose to 45%. The trend held outside the United States as well, with willingness more than doubling from 34% to 74% in Latin America. Visa's research also highlighted the importance of trust and security: some 36% of U.S. remitters said they'd encountered a cross-border payment scam.

Visa has been laying stablecoin rails for years and its stablecoin settlement volume hit an annualized rate above $20 billion. The asset manager BlackRock believes that AI agents will drive the next wave of adoption for stablecoins as crypto at large.