Stablecoins exceed Visa in raw transfer volume

Binance Research posted on April 21 that stablecoins processed about $33 trillion in 2025, compared with roughly $14 trillion in Visa payments volume. The research unit said the raw total includes substantial on-chain trading and liquidity activity and added: “Yes, the raw figure includes on-chain noise. The point is the trajectory — stablecoin rails are now operating at payments-network scale.”

Data cited by Binance Research from custody firm Fireblocks shows growing institutional engagement. About 60% of banks are targeting cross-border payments and foreign-exchange use cases, 52% prioritize real-time settlement and 37% focus on treasury optimization. Custody and collateral applications each register near 30%. The firm noted that banks “aren’t exploring. They’re deploying.”

Regulatory action in Hong Kong accompanied the figures. On April 20 at the Hong Kong Web3 Festival, Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng described stablecoins as a way to reduce costs and delays in cross-border transfers and called for standardized compliance across jurisdictions. Hong Kong granted its first stablecoin licenses to HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial under the city’s Stablecoins Ordinance.

Binance Research provided a practical comparison for a $10,000 cross-border transfer: a stablecoin payment typically incurs near-zero fees and settles almost instantly; fintech rails cost about $70 and take roughly 12 hours; SWIFT transfers average $150 and about 72 hours; card networks cost about $300 and settle in 48 hours; and digital money transfer operators average about $350 and settle in around 24 hours. The firm described the differences as structural rather than marginal.

An independent estimate cited by market participants calculated stablecoins moved about $35 trillion in 2025 but found only roughly $390 billion of that volume reflected consumer and business payments. The remainder was linked to trading, liquidity movement and other blockchain-native activity, a distinction that separates raw on-chain transfer value from conventional payment flows.

Regulators in the United States, the European Union, Japan and the UAE have been working on rules for stablecoins and digital-asset settlement. Banks and infrastructure providers report integrating stablecoin rails for FX settlement, custody services and tokenized collateral for treasury functions. Fireblocks’ data indicates many projects have moved from pilots to live deployments.

Market observers caution that public on-chain volumes can overstate end-user payment adoption because large portions of transfer value reflect exchange flows, automated market-making and intra-platform liquidity adjustments. Analysts call for clearer metrics to distinguish payment transactions from trading-related movements for direct comparisons with legacy payment networks.