Stablecoins Power Cross-Border Payments Beyond Banking Hours

Stablecoins are increasingly emerging as an essential component of cross-border payments infrastructure. Unlike traditional banking and settlement hours, dollar-backed tokens such as USDT and USDC can move and settle across blockchain networks around the clock.

This difference is evident in data from Coinbase Institutional, which found that weekend activity accounts for roughly 20% of weekly adjusted stablecoin volume over several years.

Research firm Artemis tracked $136 billion in stablecoin payment settlements between January 2023 and February 2025. By August 2025, the annualized pace of those payments had reached approximately $122 billion, with monthly volume reaching roughly $10.2 billion.

In the Philippines, a large market for cross-border transactions exists due to overseas Filipino workers sending billions in cash remittances through banks and regulated financial institutions each year.

Coins.ph, a Philippine crypto exchange and e-wallet licensed by the country's central bank, has been building USDT and USDC-to-peso liquidity around that demand. The company says its peso order book currently handles around $100 million a day in USDT and USDC trading.

The CEO of Coins.ph, Wei Zhou, notes that traditional banking hours create uncertainty for FX conversions outside the US, where exchange rates constantly fluctuate.