Stablecoins' Massive On-Chain Volumes Mask Tiny Payment Share
The stablecoin market is generating massive on-chain transaction volumes, but experts warn that these numbers may be misleading when it comes to measuring their adoption in mainstream payments.
Visa's Onchain Analytics platform recorded $4.6tn of stablecoin transaction volume over 30 days, but after filtering out activity from bots and intra-exchange transfers, the figure fell to $1.1tn.
Research from McKinsey and Artemis Analytics estimates that genuine stablecoin payments amounted to approximately $390bn during 2025, a mere 0.02 per cent of global payment flows.
The discrepancy between on-chain volume and payment volume is due to the unique economics of blockchain activity, where stablecoins are used for various legitimate purposes such as cryptocurrency trading, decentralized finance, and exchange liquidity.