Stablecoins reach $135B in non-wholesale cross-border payments

Stablecoins were used for an estimated $135B in non-wholesale cross-border payments in 2025, per FXC Intelligence analysis using Allium data. That is 0.31% of the $44T cross-border payments market. The share rose from $82B (0.2% of $40.5T) in 2024. Stablecoins’ biggest use case is business flows. Business-to-business remains the largest segment: 79% of cross-border payments in traditional currency versus 49% for stablecoins. Consumer-related usage is growing faster on stablecoins: consumer-to-consumer transfers are 15% of stablecoin volumes versus 5% in traditional currency. Business-to-consumer is 14% of stablecoin transactions versus 5% traditionally. Consumer-to-business is 22% of stablecoin volumes, double the 11% traditional share. The IMF’s Dan Katz said users may prefer “digital dollars” for liquidity, network effects, and broader acceptance in cross-border transactions. He argued that if local-currency and dollar stablecoins run on the same blockchain infrastructure, on-chain conversion via DEXs, liquidity pools, or peer-to-peer swaps could reduce reliance on banks and currency brokers. Katz also noted stablecoin market cap nearly tripled from 2021 to 2025, reaching about $300B, but has been flat in the past year. Over 99% of stablecoins are dollar-pegged, with reserves largely in short-term T-bills and reverse repos. Total stablecoin transaction volume exceeded $30T in 2025, with $6.1T cross-border; much activity remains inside crypto and is driven by bots/arbitrage. Overall, stablecoins are expanding in consumer cross-border use, but still represent a small slice of global cross-border payments.