Real stablecoin payments are just $400B per year

Adjusted stablecoin transfers and payments are just $400B when not accounting for routing and double transactions. The estimate is much lower compared to the reports of $10T to $30T. 

Real estimates of stablecoin transfers and payments are at around $400M per year, shows the latest data by Artemis. Previous reports of $10T to $30T, rivaling credit card payments, may not be accurate and do not reflect the movement of funds between counterparties. 

Adjusted stablecoin data show that a transaction may produce additional on-chain activity, which does not reflect the original payment intention. The real value transfers are not differentiated from technical movements, unspent outputs, smart contract activities and high-volume trading. 

Stablecoin payments doubled in the past year

Even with filtered and adjusted transactions, the latest data shows stablecoin payments doubled in the past 12 months. 

In total, payments reached $400B, coinciding with the constant growth of active wallets. 

Artemis filtered for payment-like behaviors, showing a more detailed breakdown of the usage of stablecoins. The report discovered wider adoption in several use cases. 

B2B payments made up $230B, or 60% of all transfers. Remittances reached $90B in the past year. Stablecoins were also used to settle capital market trades, with around $8B in volumes. 

The biggest sector growth came from stablecoin cards. For now, the cards handled $4.5B, but the sum represented an 800% year-on-year growth. Overall, crypto card usage spiked in the past year, driven by improved regulations. 

Regional adoption of stablecoin payments remains uneven

Stablecoin payments are regionally clustered, linked either to local economies or to specific regional crypto activity. Most of the real stablecoin traffic is concentrated in Asia, with Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan emerging as leaders.

Payment usage depends on local merchant adoption and culture. The spread of apps using Tether among merchants is one of the payment drivers. 

While stablecoin adoption increased in the USA and Europe, the tokens were more rarely used for payment purposes. However, global usage remained strong, boosting the adoption of USDT. In the past year, USDT and USDC were also among the most active contracts on Ethereum. 

Non-payment stablecoin activity remained strong

Artemis discovered earlier that smart contract activity made up 49.66% of all stablecoin transfers. The exact ratio may depend on the period observed, but overall, smart contracts for trading, loans, and other DeFi activities are key to stablecoin adoption and demand. 

Simple transactions between wallets made up just over 50% of all transfers. Payment activity is clustered in smaller sum transfers, while smart contracts usually move whale-sized stablecoin orders. 

As stablecoin markets matured, app producers and platforms started to differentiate the potential activity of assets. Several apps and chains are starting to focus on payments through stablecoins, choosing the least risky regulated assets. At the same time, synthetic, asset-backed, or DeFi-focused stablecoins rely on contract activity, vaults, and staking, showing a different activity profile.

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