“While stablecoins settled around $35 trillion last year, only around 1% of that represented genuine payments like remittances and payroll, a new report found.”, — write: www.coindesk.com
Their analysis estimated that only $380 billion of activity reflected actual payments, such as paying suppliers, sending remittances or funding payroll.
That represents only a tiny fraction, some 0.02% of the overall global payments volume, which McKinsey puts at more than $2 quadrillion annually.
The finding comes at a time when competition to dominate stablecoin-based payments is intensifying. Traditional payment giants like Visa and Stripe are pushing into stablecoin rails, while crypto firms like Circle and Tether pitch their tokens as replacements for slow and costly international money transfers.
While stablecoins are a fast-growing area with much potential, the report said, the headlines claiming stablecoin transaction volumes are overtaking Visa’s or Mastercard’s multi-trillion payment flows miss a key point. The bulk of the stablecoin volume represents crypto trading, internal transfers or protocol-level functions that don’t touch end users, the authors said.
Long-term potentialSo, where exactly are stablecions being used?
The report highlighted three areas where stablecoins are being used as a payment vehicle: business-to-business (B2B) transactions with $226 billion in annual volume; global payroll and remittances totaling $90 billion; and capital markets activity, such as automated fund settlements, totaling $8 billion last year.
“To be clear, the fact that true stablecoin payments are much lower than routine estimates doesn’t diminish stablecoins’ long-term potential as a payment rail,” McKinsey and Artemis analysts wrote.
“Instead, it establishes a clearer baseline for assessing where the market stands and what will be required for stablecoins to scale.”
KuCoin captured a record share of centralized exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the broader crypto market.
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per monthmarking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralized exchange volumeas KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumeswhich slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly spliteach exceeding $500 billion for the year, signaling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activityreinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activityindicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
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In an interview with CNBC, Binance’s CZ spoke of bitcoin’s four-year cycles and the potential for a BTC all-time high this year due to a greater acceptance of crypto worldwide.
- Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao told CNBC he expects bitcoin to “break the four-year cycle” and reach new all-time highs this year, diverging from its typical four-year pattern.
- Zhao attributed his bullish outlook to what he described as increasingly pro-crypto policies in the United States and other countries, which he said are improving the global environment for digital assets.
- He said he is advising about a dozen governments on crypto regulation and asset tokenization, while also pursuing personal projects such as a free education platform, an investment firm and mentoring founders in the BNB Chain ecosystem.
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