Stablecoins set to eclipse visa and mastercard

Stablecoin transaction volumes are on a trajectory to skyrocket from $28 trillion in 2025 to an astonishing $1.5 quadrillion annually by 2035, a surge driven by organic growth, generational wealth transfer, and point-of-sale adoption. Chainalysis highlights that this growth could enable stablecoins to surpass traditional payment networks, with onchain payments becoming the reference infrastructure by 2032, signaling a fundamental shift in the global payments landscape.

A pivotal catalyst behind this explosive growth is the $100 trillion intergenerational wealth transfer from Boomers to crypto-native Millennials and Gen Z between 2028 and 2048, injecting an estimated $508 trillion into annual stablecoin transaction volumes by 2035. Nearly half of these younger generations have engaged with crypto, positioning stablecoins as the natural conduit for this wealth shift and accelerating their adoption in both enterprise and consumer payments.

Beyond sheer volume, stablecoins are increasingly embedded in everyday commerce, with point-of-sale integrations projected to contribute an additional $232 trillion in annual transactions by 2035. This expansion is reflected in the growing role of stablecoins in business-to-business payments, which currently dominate volume, alongside rising business-to-consumer and consumer-to-business activity, marking a transition from mere transfer vehicles to mainstream payment instruments.

In response to this transformative growth, traditional payment giants like Visa and MasterCard are proactively integrating stablecoins and forming crypto conglomerates to adapt and avoid disruption. Industry insiders note that by 2032, crypto merchant services could reach Visa-scale adoption, shifting the narrative from competition to potential absorption or fusion with legacy payment networks, underscoring stablecoins’ imminent ascendancy in the payments ecosystem.

Major payment networks like Visa and Mastercard are pioneering the integration of stablecoins into the backend settlement layers of card systems, focusing on enhancing settlement timing, liquidity management, and cost of capital rather than altering the consumer-facing card experience. Visa’s 2025 pilot enables select clients to settle VisaNet obligations using USDC with seven-day-a-week settlement, involving bank partners such as Cross River Bank and Lead Bank, thereby reducing operational friction and improving liquidity timing. Meanwhile, Mastercard’s Multi-Token Network connects stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and fiat currencies to enable programmable payments and treasury interoperability, signaling a shift toward more sophisticated, capital-efficient backend financial infrastructure.

Beyond the traditional card networks, emerging infrastructure firms like Bridge and Rain are innovating onchain stablecoin-backed card settlements and tokenized receivables finance, which enhance collateral transparency and liquidity access beyond simple payment funding. For example, Bridge’s stablecoin-backed Visa cards settle transactions onchain, while Rain’s Credit Coop platform allows borrowing USDC secured by card receivables, illustrating how stablecoins are enabling new financial products that improve treasury mobility and prefunding capabilities in enterprise finance.

Banks are rapidly adopting tokenization and multi-rail operating systems to integrate fiat, tokenized deposits, and stablecoins, enabling seamless asset movement across multiple blockchains with centralized operational oversight. Solutions like ZKsync’s Prividium power platforms such as the Cari Network, launched by five US regional banks, which tokenize deposits to achieve near-instant settlement while maintaining FDIC insurance and regulatory compliance. This approach helps banks retain liquidity and deposits by offering digital asset capabilities within regulated frameworks, preventing attrition to unregulated platforms and transforming treasury and liquidity management.

The evolution of backend financial infrastructure with stablecoins is characterized by embedding programmable money logic that enhances treasury controls, such as reserving funds for specific purposes to prevent overspending, while simultaneously accelerating settlement speeds and reducing costs by eliminating intermediaries. However, this shift also introduces new risks due to the irreversible nature of stablecoin transactions, necessitating robust security measures including Multi-Party Computation wallets and integrated KYC/AML workflows to ensure compliance and protect against fraud, thereby making stablecoins an invisible yet foundational backbone of modern payment and treasury systems.

Major stablecoins USDC and Tether occupy distinct yet complementary niches within the stablecoin market, addressing different transactional needs rather than competing head-to-head. While USDC has surpassed Tether in transaction volume, Tether maintains a lead in market cap and transaction count, illustrating varied strengths across key metrics. As one analyst notes, "Tether serves a specific problem that they serve very very well," whereas USDC excels in a different domain, underscoring the nuanced dynamics between these two dominant players who collectively hold over 85% of the market share.

The stablecoin ecosystem is rapidly diversifying as fintech innovators like Klarna, Native Markets, and Phantom develop their own specialized stablecoins to overcome the limitations and economic conflicts inherent in building atop USDC or Tether. Klarna’s rationale highlights that relying on existing stablecoins restricts blockchain deployment options and imposes fee structures misaligned with their business models—"those other stable coins actually have a business model that's counter to your business model." This drive for autonomy allows fintechs to tailor stablecoin economics to their unique customer experiences and maintain control over asset movement, avoiding dependency risks akin to "building an app on top of Facebook," where conflicting interests can disadvantage developers.

The passage of the GENIUS Act has been a pivotal moment in clarifying the regulatory landscape for stablecoins, effectively removing ambiguity and granting traditional financial players like PayPal the 'permission to play' in this space. This legislative clarity has catalyzed a surge of public stablecoin initiatives from major companies, reflecting a broader governmental recognition of digital currencies as essential to maintaining the US dollar’s global reserve status. As noted, "post GENIUS, what you saw is a floodgate of traditional players... saying we need to think about our stablecoin strategy," underscoring a historic shift toward digital dollar adoption.

Major platforms including PayPal, Meta, Visa, and Stripe are actively expanding stablecoin use cases to enhance real-world payment experiences, particularly for cross-border transactions and creator payouts. PayPal’s PyUSD stablecoin now operates in 70 markets, enabling instant, fee-free transfers that empower users to convert funds at optimal exchange rates, while Meta leverages USDC on Solana and Polygon via Stripe to pay Instagram creators globally. Visa’s stablecoin transaction volume has surged to a $7 billion run rate, up 50% quarter over quarter, and it has broadened its blockchain settlement pilot to nine blockchains, signaling robust enterprise adoption and integration of stablecoins into mainstream payment infrastructure.

This wave of mainstream adoption is unfolding alongside intensifying regulatory scrutiny focused on fraud, money laundering, and sanctions evasion risks, prompting a nuanced regulatory push that, paradoxically, supports the maturation of stablecoins as systemically important financial instruments. While concerns are mounting, clearer frameworks and initiatives like the SEC’s Project Crypto have enabled banks and fintechs to file patents, launch tokenized deposit networks, and integrate stablecoins into their offerings, reflecting a growing institutional embrace of blockchain technology and a vision of digital wallets as central hubs for diverse digital assets.