TL;DR:
- Bloomberg Intelligence projects stablecoin payment flows could reach $56.6T by 2030, with 2025 flows cited at $2.9T.
- Stablecoin transaction value hit $33T in 2025, with Q4 at $11T versus $8.8T in Q3, per Artemis figures.
- USDC led flow at $18.3T, USDT at $13.3T; institutions like Barclays, Wyoming, and JPMorgan are building infrastructure.
Digital money’s next growth story may be hiding in plain sight: stablecoins. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates stablecoin payment flows could climb to $56.6 trillion by 2030, positioning blockchain-backed tokens as a major global payments rail. Bloomberg reporting cited alongside the estimate says total flows reached $2.9 trillion in 2025, a baseline that implies roughly 80% compound annual growth if the projection is met. For investors, the key takeaway is a scale-up narrative around payment rails, not just token prices.
Stablecoins Move Into Mainstream Payment and Settlement
Bloomberg data also shows global stablecoin transaction value surged to $33 trillion in 2025, a 72% increase year over year. Activity accelerated into late 2025, with $11 trillion processed in Q4 versus $8.8 trillion in Q3, based on figures compiled by Artemis Analytics. The report ties the rise less to speculative trading and more to real-world usage, especially cross-border payments, business settlements, and savings in inflation-hit economies. Here, real-world demand is the operational driver behind the curve.
Usage is highly concentrated. Circle’s USDC led transaction flow in 2025 with $18.3 trillion, compared with $13.3 trillion for Tether’s USDT, and together the two assets accounted for over 95% of stablecoin volume last year. Despite USDC’s lead in activity, USDT remained dominant by valuation with a $186.9 billion market cap, more than double USDC’s $74.9 billion. Bloomberg noted USDT remains preferred for day-to-day payments and as a store of value, while USDC is favored across decentralized finance platforms.
Traditional finance and public institutions are also building around those rails. Barclays took an equity stake in Ubyx, a U.S. fintech creating clearing infrastructure for stablecoins, described as the bank’s first direct exposure to stablecoin technology and focused on making stablecoins function like digital cash equivalents to bank deposits. Wyoming launched the Frontier Stable Token (FRNT), backed by U.S. dollars and short-term Treasurys, and said it will return interest earned on reserves to the state while lowering transaction costs. JPMorgan also announced plans to bring its deposit token, JPM Coin, natively to the Canton Network, a privacy-enabled public blockchain selected by DTCC for tokenizing traditional financial instruments. This is the institutional “rails build-out” phase becoming visible in production.
