Where are stablecoin's payment use case volume?

Stablecoins are the hottest trend in fintech and for good reason. The headline numbers are staggering:

• Market size exploded from <$10B to $239B in just five years

• 30M+ monthly active wallets are now sending or receiving stablecoins

• Transaction volume ranges from $5T to $26T annually, depending on methodology

But here’s the key question I’ve always asked:

How much of that volume actually comes from real payments use cases (B2B, B2C, P2P, Card) instead of trading and exchange activities.

Because if stablecoins are ever going to break out of the crypto echo chamber and truly disrupt global finance, the payment use cases need to scale.

Now, we finally have the data.

Artemis just dropped a report unpacking stablecoin payment volume across:

1. Total payment activity

2. Category breakdowns

3. Blockchain and geographic trends

   
   

In this Weekly Research, I contextualize the most important data from the report to show where the growth really is and the key GTM signals for payment stablecoin.

Let’s dive in.

Total payment activity

According to Artemis, stablecoin has processed $26T in volume this past 12 months. 99%+ of that volume is dominated by trading, DeFi activity, and MEV. You can learn more about stablecoin’s dominant role and opportunities in trading here.

Using the latest monthly payment number, the annualized stablecoin payment volume amounts to $72.3B or 0.03% of the total volume. See the chart below.

To be clear, this $72.3B number does not represent the actual payment volume that took place. But the theoretical projection is based on the latest monthly volume number. 

But the trend is clear: the total monthly payment volume increased from approx $2B in Feb 2023 to $6B in Feb 2025, due to largely the growth in B2B payments.

To put this into context, JPMorgan’s tokenized bank deposit product that is used exclusively by internal corporate clients was seeing around $2B in transaction volume a day. Of course, the difference here is that JPMorgan’s users are the largest corporates in the world. 

While stablecoin payments are mostly used by SMEs. We’re still early in stablecoin payments adoption. The key to figure out which markets you should focus on to get an early adoption lead. 

Category Breakdown

While consumer hype often centers on P2P and remittances, the real driver behind stablecoin payment growth is B2B transactions, the largest and most valuable segment of global payments. Remittance use cases have seen its volume plateauing for the past 2 years.

If you are a bank considering your stablecoin strategy, this is your clearest sign yet that stablecoin is poised to be a force in transactional banking, though you do need to adjust your target focus to SMEs instead of large corporates - who naturally total in smaller numbers but larger value per transactions.

Remember the specific use case scenario we looked at before about company sending and receiving payments? Stablecoin offers a faster and easier way to pay and receive value across borders, especially when the sender and the receiver are not based in the US. 

That is why payment firms such as Stripe and Worldpay are enabling stablecoin payments between merchants. 

B2B payments growth and volumes are now dominating stablecoin payments. It has grown from practically zero to $3B in monthly volume, overtaking the consumer P2P (remittance) use case.

Additionally, card linked volumes have also started to see steepening growth - indicating digital assets’ crossing the chasm to mainstream consumer use case moment. You don’t use stablecoins to pay for goods or services unless you already hold stablecoins in wallets. And the more people hold stablecoins in their wallets, the more likely they use it for everyday card payments.

This is great news for Visa and MasterCard, the two dominant payment networks that have partnered with various stablecoin startups issuing crypto-linked cards to ensure their payment networks capture a good part of that crypto card payment flow. 

If you are looking to tap into stablecoin market, your key GTM takeaways:

1. B2B stablecoin payment use cases are taking off - who are your customers and how to onboard them is your biggest tasks

2. Crypto card payment is taking off - how do you find your distribution channels?

Blockchains and Geographies

If you are looking to launch your own stablecoin payment product, you should take notice of where most of the volume takes place. In this case, it is Tron and Ethereum.

While most of us in the West do not talk or use Tron, it is of equal or more significance to Ethereum as a chain of choice - most likely due to the dominant USDT network effect when it comes to user preference, especially outside the US. USDT makes up more than 70% of all stablecoin payment volume.

Combining this with geographic data on volume, you can get a better idea of where you should train your BD effort.

The US, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and the UK tops the list of stablecoin payment countries (receiving or sending). Figuring out what are different payment corridor needs (for example, help an importer in the UK pay its supplier in Hong Kong or an exchange in Singapore ship out USD stablecoin to the US) between these key stablecoin hubs would go a long way in clarifying your value prop and customer acquisition strategy.

Conclusion

3 key takeaway from a payment stablecoin GTM perspective:

1. Focus on B2B and Card payments - key growth drivers

2. Focus on payments originating or coming into the US, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and UK - key hubs of volume

3. Focus on Tron and Ethereum as rails - they have the most money and therefore tends to activate most volume

Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.