Stablecoins were all the rage in 2025. The GENIUS Act provided much-needed regulatory clarity for dollar-pegged crypto tokens, and tech giants like Stripe and Sony are getting involved with their related products and services.
President Trump has reportedly benefited from stablecoins and the crypto sector in general, although the USD1 stablecoin he co-founded has been in the midst of serious corruption allegations. Additionally, Wall Street veteran Tom Lee made headlines by referring to stablecoins as crypto’s ChatGPT moment, echoing a report released by Citi earlier this year.
The crypto industry often points to blockchain data to prove that 2025 was a record year for stablecoins in terms of adoption. However, a new report from McKinsey Financial Services shows the metrics used to show how much stablecoin adoption has grown over the past few years are very misleading.
Green blockchain transfers are often cited as proof of stablecoin adoption, but the truth is only a small percentage of this activity—about 1% of the estimated $35 trillion in transaction volume—is actually related to real-world payments. This means stablecoin adoption, which is estimated at $390 billion by 2025, accounts for only about 0.02% of global payments.
According to the report, B2B payments and account remittances account for the majority of stablecoin payment activity, as well as activities such as crypto exchanges that move funds between blockchain accounts, automated activity with smart contracts, and limited exchange trading should not be included in payment calculations. The report also points out that nearly 60% of this work comes from Asia, adding, “Work today is driven almost entirely by remittances from Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan.”
.@chainalysis looked at decentralized exchange (DEX) activity on Ethereum after people claimed that decentralized exchange users were running on DeFi in response to the FTX controversy.
It turns out that the increase in DEX activity is largely due to one MEV bot being favored by DeFi users. pic.twitter.com/ptkJw3SCoK
— Kyle Torpey (@kyletorpey) November 18, 2022
Of course, false or false discovery metrics are not new to the crypto world. Various data points, such as the proliferation of on-chain activity around decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, can be used to tell all kinds of tall tales. There’s also been a lot of hype built on metrics like transactions per second over the years, which often misses the point of what makes this technology so valuable.
Despite the clear statements of stablecoin payment acceptance made by various organizations in the crypto industry, this report shows that there are still signs of real growth. For example, the $390 billion in stablecoin payments that will occur in 2025 is more than double what was seen in the previous year. Additionally, the total value of stablecoins has increased from less than $30 billion in 2020 to more than $300 billion today.
Of course, not all of this was a positive discovery, as a report from the blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis showed that stablecoins now account for the majority of illegal crypto transfers. Reports also pointed to the heavy use of Tether’s USDT stablecoin by the Maduro regime, and its acceptance by the Central Bank of Iran shows why the pro-stablecoin policy in the US is a double-edged sword.
In general, the prominence of stablecoins in crypto has caused tension between cypherpunks who focus on the idea and fintech startups who are more focused on acquisition metrics. While stablecoins were initially considered a benefit to crypto use, it has now reached the point where stablecoin issuers are introducing their own blockchain infrastructure, adding another layer of centralized control to the technology stack.
While those like the aforementioned Tom Lee see the release of stablecoins and other tokens based on real-world assets, such as tokenized stocks, as bullish on decentralized crypto networks like Ethereum, questions remain as to how much value will be derived from these open protocols or if stablecoin issuers and other centralized entities can successfully bridge these networks.
