Stablecoins outpace Visa and Mastercard: $33T in 2025, $50T target

Stablecoins are processing more money than Visa and Mastercard combined, according to Morph’s “State of Stablecoins” report. Stablecoins settled $33 trillion on-chain in 2025, versus $25.5 trillion handled by Visa and Mastercard together. The data highlights growing institutional use. About 60% of stablecoin flows are now business-to-business, driven by corporates using dollar tokens for cross-border treasury, supplier payments and procurement. Separately, the report says around 90% of financial institutions are already using or piloting stablecoins. Volume momentum is also accelerating. The report notes several months in 2025 where stablecoins cleared above $1.5 trillion monthly, putting tokenized settlement capacity in the same range as major card networks. Looking ahead, Morph projects stablecoin settlement could exceed $50 trillion annually as early as 2026. By 2030, it forecasts stablecoins could represent roughly 10% of global cross-border payments, supported by lower fees, instant settlement, and clearer regulation under frameworks such as the EU’s MiCA and new U.S. stablecoin rules. The report also argues that AI agents may become key transaction initiators, automating high-frequency machine-to-machine payments across supply chains. Under this scenario, stablecoins could support a $1.9 trillion market by 2030. For traders, the message is that stablecoins are shifting from a speculative theme to core market infrastructure—volume growth and enterprise adoption may reduce liquidity risk while increasing on-chain dollar demand.