Stablecoins flipped the script to surpass Visa in transaction volume

The Bitwise Crypto Market Review for Q1 2025 revealed that stablecoin transaction volume narrowly surpassed Visa payments, as stablecoin transaction volume rose by over 30%. Meanwhile, the sector’s AUM hit an ATH of more than $218B, with a 13.5% increase quarter-over-quarter.

The Bitwise Q1 report revealed that fiat-linked tokens processed over $27.6 trillion in transactions during the year, officially exceeding Visa’s total payment volume and edging out Mastercard by 7.7%. The growth was driven by USDT, USDC, and DAI, with 95% of the volume settled on the Ethereum network. 

These fiat-backed digital currencies have also become a top 15 holder of U.S. Treasuries, reflecting their increased integration into traditional financial markets. For context, their volumes were almost 10 times less than those of Visa in 2020, and it took just under five years to close this gap and eventually flip Visa.

Bitwise report shows that stablecoin transactions surpassed Visa payments

Bitwise reported that stablecoins had outpaced Visa in volume, with the trend clearly showing that TradeFi is getting disrupted. It is also estimated that they will settle roughly $27.6 trillion in total transaction volume in 2024, with most of it running on Ethereum. 

The CEO of Social Capital, Chamath Palihapitiya, also confirmed that the average weekly stablecoin transaction volume in Q4 of 2024 reached $464 billion against Visa’s $316 billion. Citigroup even projected that the market could reach $3.8 trillion by 2030. 

However, experts like Dan Smith (Data Expert at Blockworks Research) and Joe Coll (Advisor at Maven 11 Capital) warned that the stablecoin volume might be inflated or manipulated, arguing that it does not reflect real economic activity, and it can not be directly compared with traditional financial systems like Visa. 

Coll pointed out that professional traders could generate hundreds of millions in volume using very little initial capital. Smith agreed with Coll’s view that volume manipulation for these U.S. dollar-backed tokens could be achieved without requiring large capital, casting doubt on the figures cited by Palihapitiya. Rajiv Patel-O’Connor, the Principal at Framework Ventures, even referred to the metric as “useless.”

Last year, Visa’s dashboard also reported that only about 10% of stablecoin transactions were genuine, sharply contrasting with Visa, where each transaction represented a real payment or purchase.

Visa partners with Bridge to offer stablecoin-linked cards in Latin America 

Visa announced that it was partnering with Bridge to offer Visa cards linked to fiat-pegged tokens to its Latin American customers. 

Zach Abrams, CEO of Bridge, said that for consumers to use stablecoins on a large scale, “they will have to be interoperable with existing tools and services that customers and businesses are accustomed to.”

Abrams also said interoperability “enabled folks to use and take advantage of these programmable digital currencies wherever they were in the world, but remain wholly connected with the financial tools that folks used.” 

“We feel like the moment is now to take some of the things that we’ve already been doing on a more experimental, pilot basis and start to expose them to the world as capabilities that we anticipate will really start to become big and meaningful and globally scalable.”

–Jack Forestell, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Visa.

Visa and Bridge also made a joint statement claiming that people will be able to use the stablecoin-linked cards at any merchant that accepts Visa. The new card programs will be introduced in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Chile. The statement also revealed that the product will become available in Europe, Africa, and Asia in the coming months.

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