TL;DR:
- Bitwise’s CIO projects stablecoins will reach a $4 trillion supply by 2030, up from the current $302 billion.
- DoorDash and Meta are developing stablecoin payment pilots for millions of workers and creators in over 40 countries using Solana and Polygon.
- Western Union launched USDPT on Solana and Visa reported an annualized volume of $7 billion in its settlement pilot.
The Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise, Matt Hougan, published a memo for clients in which he argues that pilot programs by major tech companies could be the catalyst that takes stablecoins from the current $302 billion to a projected $4 trillion by 2030. Hougan’s analysis is grounded in two concrete cases that, according to him, reveal the true nature of these assets.
DoorDash is working with Stripe to explore stablecoin payments for its 10 million delivery workers spread across more than 40 countries. Meta, meanwhile, has already begun paying content creators in Colombia and the Philippines through Solana and Polygon, with expansion plans underway. The creator market is estimated to encompass more than 200 million people, which turns the logistical challenge into one of massive scale.
The True Potential of Stablecoins
Hougan acknowledges that both projects are small in absolute terms, but argues that they changed his understanding of what the real advantage of stablecoins is. The usual argument points to cost: an international bank transfer can cost up to $30 and take several days, while a blockchain transaction settles in seconds for fractions of a cent. But that, he notes, is not what drives these companies.
What DoorDash and Meta are after is operational simplicity: a single wallet address, no need for local banking infrastructure, and no currency conversions for each market. For companies managing millions of micropayments across dozens of different jurisdictions, that simplification is a clear structural advantage that is hard to ignore. “I suspect that every tech company with independent workers will follow this path,” Hougan wrote.
The Road Toward Hundreds of Millions of Users
The supply of dollar-pegged stablecoins has already surpassed $302 billion. Tether’s USDT stands at around $189.5 billion and Circle’s USDC holds approximately $79 billion in market capitalization. Additionally, Western Union launched USDPT on Solana to offer settlements in more than 200 countries, and Visa reported that its settlement pilot reached an annualized volume of $7 billion after expanding to nine blockchains and more than 130 card programs across over 50 countries.
For Hougan, the deepest impact lies not in supply figures, but in user onboarding. A wallet holding these stable assets is the most direct gateway into the crypto ecosystem: from there, bitcoin and decentralized finance are just one click away.
