Latest / The Cryptocurrency Economy with Fexingo: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Digital Money Markets / Why Stablecoin Trading Volume Now Exceeds Visa
Transcript
- Lucas: So here's a number that stopped me this morning. Stablecoin trading volume across all blockchains hit roughly sixty-eight billion dollars a day as of last week. That's not just big in crypto terms — that's bigger than Visa's average daily transaction volume, which sits around forty-two billion. Luna: Wait, stablecoin volume bigger than Visa? I know the crypto market has grown, but that still sounds like a milestone worth pausing on. Lucas: It really is. And it's not just a one-day spike. This has been trending up all year, and June 2026 is the first month where the seven-day average has consistently stayed above Visa's. We're talking about USDC, USDT — the big dollar-pegged tokens — being used for settlement, trading, and increasingly for payments. Luna: Let's put some context on that sixty-eight billion. How much of that is actual economic activity versus just people shuffling coins between exchanges? Lucas: That's the key question. A good chunk of that volume is trading pairs on centralized and decentralized exchanges — you use USDC to buy bitcoin, that counts. But the share going to payments and remittances is growing fast. Circle reported that USDC payment volume on non-exchange wallets has tripled year-over-year. And companies like Stripe are now settling cross-border merchant payouts in USDC. Luna: So the infrastructure is finally there. I remember a few years ago stablecoins were mostly a trading utility. Now they're becoming a payment rail. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a huge shift. The Visa comparison matters because Visa has been the benchmark for digital payment volume for decades. Stablecoins in their current form have only been around since 2014, and they've already caught up in raw numbers. Now, the caveat is that Visa's number excludes cash and checks, but still — it's a signal. Luna: And this week's market sell-off — bitcoin down six and a half percent in five days, ether down almost nine — does that affect stablecoin demand? Lucas: Actually, it might boost it. When people sell volatile crypto, they often move into stablecoins rather than fiat. So the stablecoin supply tends to rise during corrections. We've seen USDC supply increase by about two billion dollars this week alone. It's basically the crypto equivalent of parking cash in a money market fund. Luna: Right, so the stablecoin volume surge is partly a flight to safety within crypto. But the bigger story is structural adoption. Lucas: Exactly. And that's where the composition matters. Tether — USDT — still has the largest market cap at about one hundred twelve billion dollars. But its market share has slipped to fifty-five percent, down from about seventy percent two years ago. USDC has gained ground, now at around forty-two billion supply. And newer entrants like PayPal's PYUSD and the yield-bearing stablecoins are also growing. Luna: Yield-bearing stablecoins — that's the really interesting development. You can now earn like four percent on a dollar-pegged token without leaving the blockchain. That's competitive with high-yield savings accounts. Lucas: And that's pulling in a different kind of user. Not just traders, but people looking for a yield on cash that's easily transferable. The Fed's interest on reserve balances is at three point six five percent, so these yields are roughly in line with risk-free rates. But the stablecoin version is programmable and global. Luna: Which brings us to the regulatory question. If stablecoins are now processing more value than Visa, regulators are definitely paying attention. Lucas: They are. The Lummis-Gillibrand bill in the US has been making its way through Congress, and it would create a federal framework for payment stablecoins. The key provisions are one-to-one reserve requirements, no rehypothecation, and federal oversight. If that passes, it could legitimize the market further. Luna: And if it doesn't pass, we could see a fragmented state-by-state approach. That could slow down adoption for us based issuers. Lucas: Right. But globally, the trend is already clear. The European Union's MiCA regulation came into effect last year, and it already has stablecoin rules. Singapore and Hong Kong have their own frameworks. The stablecoin train has left the station. Luna: Let's also talk about the elephant in the room — how much of this volume is wash trading or arbitrage bots? The real utility metric is probably non-exchange wallet to wallet transfers. Lucas: That's a fair critique. Visa's number is transaction value for goods and services, not speculative trading. When you strip out exchange-related volume, stablecoin payments are probably still around ten to fifteen billion a day. That's smaller but still growing fast. And it's already larger than all crypto merchant payments from two years ago. Luna: So the headline is impressive, but the underlying trend is even more important. We're seeing the infrastructure mature. Lucas: Exactly. And it's worth reflecting on how we got here. We started this show talking about Bitcoin as digital gold, and now we're spending an episode on dollar-pegged tokens. The market is evolving. If walking through the economy with us has made something click — maybe you understand the Fed better, or you've changed how you think about money — that's exactly why we do this. Luna: And we deliberately don't run ads on these episodes. No sponsors, no interruptions. If you want to support that choice, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: It's a small way to keep this independent. Anyway, back to stablecoins — one more data point I want to flag. The average transaction fee for sending USDC on Solana is less than a tenth of a cent. On Ethereum mainnet, it's about thirty cents. That gap is driving a lot of the volume shift toward Solana and other low-fee chains. Luna: And that's why we're seeing stablecoin volume explode on Solana — it's now the second-largest chain for USDC after Ethereum, with over twelve billion in daily volume. Lucas: Right. And that feeds back into the economics. Lower fees mean smaller transactions become viable. You can send twenty dollars for a fraction of a cent. That opens up remittances, micro-payments, and payouts to gig workers. That's where the real growth is. Luna: So the stablecoin story is really about the democratization of payment rails. It's not just about crypto natives shuffling tokens. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why this milestone matters. It's not just a vanity metric. It reflects real adoption of blockchain-based payment systems. The question now is whether the regulatory framework can keep up without stifling innovation. Luna: And whether the next leg of growth comes from institutional integration or retail adoption in emerging markets. Lucas: I'd bet on emerging markets. Countries with high inflation or weak banking infrastructure are already leapfrogging to stablecoins. We're seeing it in Nigeria, Argentina, Turkey. That's where the volume growth will come from. Luna: Let's keep an eye on that. For now, the data says stablecoins have arrived as a major payment system. Lucas: They have. And if you're interested in the details, we'll link to the source data in the show notes. For The Cryptocurrency Economy, I'm Lucas. Luna: And I'm Luna. See you next time.