Key Insights:
- Stablecoins moved roughly $35 trillion last year, as per the latest stablecoin news report by McKinsey.
- However, the firm estimated true payment use at about $390 billion.
- McKinsey said that the level of real stablecoin payments is still a drop in the ocean
As per the latest stablecoin news, stablecoins moved roughly $35 trillion last year. However, a new report said only a tiny slice of that activity reflected real payments. Put simply, most of that activity wasn’t people using stablecoins for day-to-day payments like sending money home or getting paid.
The report estimated real payment use at about $390 billion. That includes paying suppliers, covering salaries, sending remittances, and settling a small share of capital markets deals.
Stablecoin News: Stablecoins Moved $35T
As per the latest stablecoin news, Stablecoins pushed more than $35 trillion through blockchains last year. However, a new report from McKinsey and Artemis Analytics said only a small fraction of that activity counted as real-world payments.
In fact, the firms estimated true payment use at about $390 billion. That includes things like paying suppliers, sending remittances, and running payroll.
McKinsey said that the level of real stablecoin payments is still a drop in the ocean. It works out to roughly 0.02% of the more than $2 quadrillion that moves through global payments every year.
Even so, the timing is notable. The report lands just as the race to own stablecoin payments is heating up, with more firms trying to turn the technology into a mainstream money rail.
Big payment companies are starting to take stablecoins seriously as a quicker way to move money. Visa and Stripe, for instance, are looking at how stablecoin rails could plug into their systems.
At the same time, crypto firms are leaning in even further, trying to turn stablecoins into everyday payment tools. Circle and Tether say stablecoins can cut the time and cost of sending money across borders, especially compared with the usual banking routes.
Stablecoins are Surpassing Visa and Mastercard Transactions
The authors argued that most stablecoin volume comes from behind-the-scenes activity. They said a large share is tied to crypto trading, wallet-to-wallet shuffling, and protocol operations that ordinary users never see.
The report said stablecoins show up most clearly in three payment lanes. First, businesses are using them to pay other businesses, with about $226 billion a year in B2B flows. Next, stablecoins are increasingly used for payroll and remittances, which the study put at roughly $90 billion.
Finally, they are starting to appear in capital markets, with automated fund settlements totaling about $8 billion last year.
McKinsey and Artemis said the smaller payment numbers should not be read as a failure. They argued that even if real stablecoin payments are far below the usual hype, stablecoins can still grow into a major payment rail over time.
In the real world, some efforts already point in that direction. Groups like the Blockchain Payments Consortium suggest cross-chain payment standards can be built without shutting the door on open, non-custodial access.
Stablecoins should help everyday people, not only big institutions. If they end up serving only large firms and tightly controlled flows, they won’t change the system. They will simply fit into it.
That is why the design matters. Stablecoins need real peer-to-peer transfers, privacy that users can choose, and easy connections across different networks. Otherwise, we just rebuild the old power structures on new rails, only moving money faster.