NEW YORK—Stablecoins are moving beyond their role as a niche tool for cryptocurrency trading and are increasingly being viewed as a potential layer of global financial infrastructure, according to a report by Australian investment bank Macquarie.
While most activity in U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoins still comes from crypto trading—accounting for about 90% of volume—Macquarie said adoption is expanding into areas such as payments, cross-border remittances, treasury operations and tokenized assets, linking traditional finance more closely with decentralized finance, Coindesk reported.
“Stablecoin adoption is making strides in cross-border remittances, but adoption as form of payment still has room to grow, presenting an attractive total addressable market opportunity,” analysts led by Paul Golding wrote in a note, according to CoinDesk.
Underpinning the Market
The largest stablecoin by market value and trading volume is Tether’s USDT, which serves as a key source of liquidity across crypto exchanges. Circle’s USDC is the second largest and is widely used in institutional and decentralized finance applications. Together, the tokens underpin much of the crypto market’s activity and are increasingly being explored for payments, remittances and settlement, according to CoinDesk.
Macquarie estimates the combined market capitalization of major stablecoins at about $312 billion as of March 2026, up roughly 50% from a year earlier and representing about 7% to 8% of the total cryptocurrency market, Coindesk said.
Transaction Activity Rises
Transaction activity is rising even faster. Adjusted stablecoin transfer volume reached roughly $11 trillion in 2025, suggesting so-called “on-chain dollars” are becoming a meaningful economic tool within crypto markets and in some real-world payment corridors, the report said.
Regulatory developments are also helping drive the shift, the analysts said, pointing to proposals such as the U.S. GENIUS Act, Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework and emerging regulations in the Asia-Pacific region as factors encouraging stablecoins to evolve from speculative instruments toward institutional settlement tools.
Additional Experiments
Payments networks and financial institutions are also experimenting with the technology. According to CoinDesk, Visa and Mastercard now support settlement using USDC, allowing card obligations to be discharged on blockchain networks.
Large banks are testing similar concepts. Macquarie pointed to initiatives including JPMorgan’s JPMD tokenized deposit product, Citi’s Token Services platform and tokenized deposit pilots at HSBC as signs that blockchain-based settlement is gaining traction among major financial institutions.
