Stablecoins Settle $940 B a Month—Nipping at Visa’s Heels

Ben
Tue, 05 Aug 2025 07:08:47 +0000
Stablecoins, ticker, Circle, Mastercard, Tether, Visa

Excerpt

Stablecoins now clear almost a trillion dollars every 30 days—within 15 % of Visa’s monthly payment flow and already bigger than Mastercard’s.

We show why “crypto cash legs” are capturing settlement share and map three scenarios for whether blockchains, not new currencies, upend legacy rails.

5 Key Points

1. Visa’s on-chain analytics clock $939.9 B adjusted stablecoin settlement volume in the last 30 days (weekdays $748 B + weekends $192 B) (Source: visaonchainanalytics.com).

2. McKinsey pegs “real” stablecoin payments at $20-30 B per day—$600-900 B monthly—up 10× since 2021 with annual volume topping $27 T in 2024 (Source: McKinsey & Company).

3. Credit-card comps: Visa FY 2024 payments $13.2 T (≈$1.1 T / month) and Mastercard GDV $9.8 T (≈$0.8 T / month) (Sources: annualreport.visa.com,investor.mastercard.com).

4. Single-issuer datapoint: USDC alone moved $1 T in November 2024, confirming stablecoins’ shift from trading slosh to real-economy settlement (Source: Circle).

5. 24 / 7 liquidity matters: nearly 20 % of stablecoin volume lands on weekends, when card and bank rails sleep (Source: visaonchainanalytics.com).

Short Narrative

Stablecoins started as grease for crypto trades but have morphed into the industry’s “cash leg,” the final hop that settles everything from dollar-pegged remittances to DeFi repo. Visa’s public dashboard shows almost a trillion dollars settled in July 2025 alone, rivaling its own card network. This growth traces three catalysts: cheaper Layer-2 blockchains slicing fees below a cent; new regulations (GENIUS, MiCA) legitimizing reserves; and emerging-market demand for dollars without bank accounts. The result is a 24/7 settlement rail that clears value while SWIFT and ACH batch overnight—pressuring incumbents far sooner than CBDCs ever did (Sources: visaonchainanalytics.com,McKinsey & Company)

Extended Analysis

Why the Surge?
Always-on money. Card networks authorize instantly but settle to merchants in T + 1-3 days; stablecoins finalize in seconds and are programmable. Remittance firms in Latin America now batch USDT payouts after local cut-off, avoiding weekend float. Meanwhile, traders arbitrage FX forward points by parking liquidity in USDC overnight—effectively monetizing the time value of finality.

Regulatory clarity matters too: GENIUS in the U.S. and MiCA in the EU gave institutional treasurers the green light to hold stablecoins as “designated high-quality liquid assets,” unlocking an estimated $45 B of corporate float since Q1 2025 (Source: McKinsey & Company).

Read more about stablecoins and US Treasury bills here.

Market Share Maths
At July run-rate, stablecoins settle ~$11 T annualized, 70 % of Visa and 110 % of Mastercard. Growth remains 80 % CAGR, but volumes plateau without new off-ramps: only 4 % of the world’s card-accepting merchants currently take on-chain USDC. If Solana Pay, Stripe’s stablecoin pilot, and Brazil’s Pix-on-chain bridge hit scale, penetration could double by 2027, putting stablecoins on track to eclipse all card schemes combined.

Will They Replace the Dollar?
Unlikely. Over 95 % of circulating stablecoins are dollar-pegged. Users want greenback exposure without U.S. banking frictions, not a new unit of account. Dollar dominance may even deepen as euro and yuan stablecoins lag liquidity. The real threat is who clears dollars: blockchains vs. card processors and correspondent banks. A Binance Pay transfer that settles in 15 seconds on Tron, with a $0.10 fee, highlights why rails—not currencies—face replacement.

Platform Risk & Roadblocks

Liquidity cliffs: If gas fees spike or a bridge hack freezes tokens, merchants lose same-day cash-out.

Regulatory arbitrage: Issuers can domicile where reserve rules are looser, importing prudential risk back to core markets.

Interoperability wars: Competing chains fragment liquidity; without universal messaging (e.g., Chainlink CCIP, Swift CBDC sandbox), settlement could balkanize.

Investment Implications – Risk-Reward Matrix

Bull Case:

Card acquirers integrate USDC rails, skimming 15 bps vs. legacy 200 bps interchange.

Cross-border SME wallets ditch SWIFT, adding $200 B annual flow by 2027.

Bear Case:

Major stablecoin loses banking partner; $50 B redemption shock freezes DeFi funding.

G20 imposes hard caps on stablecoin transaction size, stalling merchant adoption.

Wildcard:

Layer-2 rollups achieve sub-cent fees at FedNow latency, pushing Treasury to open a wholesale CBDC to stay relevant.