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Dr. Guneet Kaur is an independent researcher in financial technologies and AI, with a focus on cryptocurrency, blockchain, and digital assets. She holds a Professional Doctorate in Data Science.
Originally born as a parking spot between trades and volatile crypto tokens, stablecoins such as USDT and USDC have become a lifeline for individuals in high-inflation economies seeking a safe haven for their savings, capital preservation, and borderless access to the US dollar.
According to the Visa Onchain Analytics Dashboard, total transaction volume involving stablecoins reached USD 100.1 trillion as of 12 August. This milestone demonstrates how stablecoins have grown into a genuine payments infrastructure, settling USD 7.2 trillion in February 2026 alone and eclipsing the US ACH network’s transaction volume for the first time in history.
In addition, as of mid-2026, approximately 269 million on-chain addresses now hold a stablecoin balance. This highlights a fundamental shift: dollar-denominated digital tokens have quietly built a parallel settlement layer that sits alongside, and in some places surpasses, the traditional cross-border payment rails that have moved private wealth for half a century.
Traditional cross-border settlement is still time-consuming (settlement runs three to five business days) and incurs costs such as FX markups, wire fees, and intermediary deductions, reaching 2%–7% of the transaction. An average cost of sending a formal international remittance sits at 6.49%, according to World Bank tracking data. This remains more than double the UN Sustainable Development Goal target of 3%.
Stablecoin settlement cuts transaction fees to mere fractions of a penny (on most chains), while reducing settlement time to seconds. Most interestingly, the behavioral sheet can be observed from data. For instance, Stablecoins now bridge crypto and traditional finance, per the IMF’s latest report on Nigeria. Similarly, between 2022 and 2025, Latin America processed roughly USD 1.5 trillion in cryptocurrency transactions, with US dollar-backed stablecoins accounting for the vast majority of these flows, according to Chainalysis data. Driven by a need for faster, cheaper settlement, 71% of Latin American institutions now use stablecoins for cross-border payments, the highest regional adoption rate in the world.
About 43% of B2B cross-border payments in Southeast Asia use stablecoins. For instance, over 11.5 million workers and freelancers in the Philippines leverage stablecoins for sub-0.1% transaction fees, and Indonesia processed USD 12.3 billion in stablecoin volume in 2025 (+340% YoY).
Institutional infrastructure has followed the adoption scale and volume. Through its stablecoin settlement program, Visa enables fintech and institutional partners to settle payment obligations via tokens such as USDC. Now operating at an annualized run rate above USD 7 billion, the multi-chain initiative operates 24/7/365, bypassing traditional banking hours.
Beyond card networks like Visa, payroll platforms and traditional remittance giants are embedding stablecoins directly into everyday finance. Global HR platform Deel introduced its native Deel Stablecoin Wallet (DLUSD), letting international contractors protect earnings from local inflation, earn daily rewards, and spend via a Deel Card, all directly inside their existing payroll account. Meanwhile, Western Union launched its Solana-backed Stablecard (using USDPT) to let users hold digital dollars and spend them via Visa, while MoneyGram enables cash-to-USDC conversions at physical locations alongside its Stellar-based MGUSD token.
With such rails in place, dollar liquidity can now move between a Dubai custodian, a Singapore family office, and a European bank account inside minutes rather than days, without routing through a US correspondent bank at all.
Despite the accessible infrastructure and widespread adoption of stablecoins, legitimate wealth planning depends more on regulations than on technology. The first federal licensing and reserve framework for payment stablecoins came into life in July 2025 when the US GENIUS Act was signed into law.
However, the rules are still emerging as the law lands on 18 January 2027, or 120 days after the primary federal regulators finalize their rules. As US agencies gather comments on new stablecoin AML rules through August 2026, the framework mandates Federal Reserve and Treasury cross-border coordination to establish reciprocal custody recognition with aligned foreign regulators.
In comparison, Europe now operates a fully licensed stablecoin market following the end of MiCA's transitional period, with roughly 35 authorized tokens across the EU. However, compliance remains narrow: only three top-50 stablecoins (USDC, USDG, and EURC) meet the standard, all tracing back to Circle. This creates a real challenge for wealth managers, as dominant global liquidity drivers like Tether’s USDT remain outside the EU’s regulated perimeter.
For family offices, private banks, and wealth advisers, this shift has three practical consequences. Holding or moving US dollars no longer hinges on maintaining a US bank account or correspondent banking relationship, which fundamentally alters asset protection for clients in jurisdictions with strict capital controls or fragile financial networks. Instant settlement also eliminates the operational drag of international structuring. This means funding a residence application, capitalizing an offshore holding entity, or moving liquidity before a tax deadline no longer depends on banking hours or correspondent cut-off times. Growing policy divergence between Washington and Brussels gives private clients a strategic choice over where stablecoin wealth is custodied and reported, echoing the traditional decision between global offshore banking hubs.
However, this transition will not be seamless. The passage of the GENIUS Act wiped an estimated USD 300 billion (roughly 18%) off the market capitalization of legacy payment firms, a stark sign that economic power is shifting away from traditional intermediaries, many of whom remain core partners for private wealth clients today.
Among perils, concentration risk sits near the top of the list as Tether (USDT issuer) and Circle (USDC issuer) hold roughly 83% of total circulating stablecoin supply.
In their recent paper ‘Competing Rails for Cross-Border Payments: Banks, Fintechs, and Stablecoins’, researchers Wenxin Du, Catherine Huang, and David Scharfstein argue that while stablecoin rails offer a novel architecture, they are neither costless nor intermediary-free.
The stablecoin ‘sandwich’ requires fiat on-ramps, off-ramps, exchange trading, and sometimes liquidity pools, introducing a new chain of intermediaries that each charge explicit fees. Also, atomic blockchain speed by itself does not ensure cost competitiveness, even if foreign exchange legs on cryptocurrency exchanges can equal wholesale rates and reduce traditional costs in certain emerging market corridors. Ultimately, the authors contend that the widespread adoption of stablecoins will depend as much on governance, user trust, and regulation around these new intermediaries as on technological innovation.
The Banca d’Italia study ‘Are Stablecoins Efficient for Remittances? Evidence from a Mystery Shopping Exercise by Banca d’Italia’ also adds empirical backing to Du, Huang, and Scharfstein’s core thesis.
By testing USD 200 USDC transfers across 10 corridors, the study confirmed that stablecoins offer no systematic cost advantage over legacy channels, with total friction ranging from 0.30% to nearly 9%. It highlighted that the actual on-chain transaction cost is negligible; instead, on-ramps and off-ramps drive both total fees and settlement delays. Where local instant payment networks exist, end-to-end transfers finished within 20 minutes, but where standard bank transfers were required, settlement stretched to two business days, proving that stablecoin efficiency remains tethered to domestic banking infrastructure.
Regardless, the future role of stablecoins in global financial infrastructure cannot be ignored as adoption expands and traditional institutions continue integrating digital token settlement.
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