Stablecoins retained high levels of activity in the past year, surpassing even VISA in terms of transfer activity. ARK Invest research shows stablecoins carried $15.6T in reported volumes, representing 119% of the volumes of VISA transactions.
Stablecoins saw peak activity in the past year, becoming a key tool for both centralized and decentralized activity. According to a recent report by ARK Invest, transfers reached $15.6T, representing 119% of the volumes carried by VISA. Stablecoin activity also equalled 200% the volumes of VISA.
Stablecoins continue to prove their resilience, gradually increasing their supply and activity levels even during bear markets. The tokens are used as sources of liquidity for exchange trading, replacing Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) for peer-to-peer payments and large asset transfers.
ARK Invest also predicts that fiat-pegged tokens may rival national currencies, after catching up with corporate payment activities.
In 2024, the total supply of stablecoins was over $200B, making up 0.17% of the total money supply. They are also responsible for about 1% of the US dollar supply. Given an average growth rate of 38%, the collection of stablecoins could expand to rival the money supply of Spain.
The stablecoin trend has been strong in 2025 as supply grew by around 14% in January.
Stablecoins keep replacing BTC and ETH transfers
Since 2019, the crypto market has explored stablecoins as more intuitive dollar-denominated assets. Stablecoin transfers make up between 35% and 50% of on-chain activity, leading to an intuitive dollarization of the market. More than 98% of all asset-backed or algorithmic stablecoins are tied to the US dollar, with a small market for gold and Euro-backed tokens.
Despite de-dollarization attempts by developing countries, crypto activity has become more heavily dollarized.
The usage of Tether depends on the growing demand for US Treasuries and dollar-based money market instruments. Stablecoins are also used as a more predictable store of value in markets with high inflation and fluctuating local currencies, like Brazil, Nigeria, Turkey, Indonesia, and India.
Tracking stablecoins is relatively difficult, as the tokens are present on multiple chains, each with a different usage profile. According to VISA’s own reporting, activity reached $32.4T, while adjusted volumes for the past 12 months are at $6.1T.
Despite this, the overall result reveals stablecoins surpassed the volume of traditional payment processors for the first time in 2024. The main driver of stablecoin usage was trading, as peak transfers followed the rapid market expansion in December 2024.
Stablecoins were the most active tokens on four major chains – Solana, Ethereum, Base, and TRON. Solana and Base boosted the usage of USDC, while Ethereum and TRON remained the main hubs for USDT transfers.
Stablecoins take on a retail role
Stablecoins have multiple use cases, including whale-sized transfers. In 2024, however, there were signs that it saw more activity in retail payments. According to ARK Invest, users have moved to L2 chains for cheaper and faster transfers.
There is a demarcation in stablecoin whale usage, which is still based on Ethereum. On the other hand, retail has shifted to Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base.
Celo is another L1 chain that saw significant retail traffic, with the biggest share of transfers under $100.
Stablecoin usage is still in the domain of self-custodial wallets and peer-to-peer transactions. In the case of USDC, over 60% of use cases involved self-custodied wallets and regular Ethereum addresses. Centralized exchanges took 11% of the transfers, bridges carried 7% of transactions, and DEX took up 1.7% of all USDC activity.
ARK Invest expects DEX usage and other DeFi activities to grab a bigger share of stablecoin usage in the coming years.
Stablecoins may transform into yield-bearing assets
Stablecoins are one of the most widely used assets for passive income. Both Tether and Circle have expanded their yield-bearing reserves, with low-risk income from bonds and money markets.
For now, the issuers do not share their annual interest rate returns, but may soon start offering to share their yield with users.
Yield-bearing stablecoins have grown, especially based on Ethena’s sUSDe. However, synthetic yield-bearing ones are still considered the riskiest asset, as their stability depends on a bullish trend for the rest of the crypto market.
Cryptopolitan Academy: How to Write a Web3 Resume That Lands Interviews – FREE Cheat Sheet
Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/stablecoins-surpass-visa-activity-tron-leads/