A line chart circulating on social media titled “Stablecoins Catching Up with Established Settlement Networks” displays the annual processing volumes of major settlement networks alongside stablecoin volumes over the past decade. While settlement networks like Fedwire, ACH, and Visa show a gradual increase, the stablecoin line dramatically rises within six years, nearing parity with Visa. However, this comparison may not fully depict the situation.
Stablecoin data presents challenges due to its complexity and the involvement of various blockchain networks. Unlike traditional settlement networks, stablecoin transactions occur on public blockchains, providing real-time data but also introducing noise. The programmability of blockchain transactions allows for activities like stablecoin arbitrage and liquidity provision, which contribute to transaction volumes but don’t resemble traditional settlement processes.
To address this, Visa has launched the Visa Onchain Analytics Dashboard in partnership with Allium Labs. This dashboard aims to provide accessible insights into stablecoin activity, including data on active users, volumes, and transaction sizes. Three notable trends identified include the approaching all-time high of stablecoin supply, growth in monthly active users, and a discrepancy between total transfer volume and bot-adjusted transfer volume.
Analysing the data as of 4th April 2024, CoinFactiva.com identified three significant trends regarding the current status and potential of stablecoins:
- The supply of stablecoins is nearing all-time highs, with total demand rebounding in 2024, pushing circulating supply close to $150 billion.
- There is a consistent increase in the number of monthly active users of stablecoins. Across all blockchain networks, there is a growth in regular stablecoin users, totaling 27.5 million active users per month.
- A notable gap exists between the total transfer volume and the volume adjusted for bot-driven transactions. By employing a straightforward method to filter out non-organic data, we observe that the transfer volume for the past 30 days could be adjusted from $2.65 trillion to $265 billion.
As a company with decades of experience in digital payments, Visa is committed to understanding and leveraging emerging technologies like stablecoins to facilitate efficient money movement.
