Stablecoin payments reached an annualised $390b as of December 2025, more than doubling from 2024, according to McKinsey & Company and blockchain analytics firm Artemis Analytics.
Asia accounted for the bulk of activity, contributing $245b or about 60% of total volumes. The surge was largely driven by outbound payments from Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan, the report found.
In 2025, Hong Kong rolled out a stablecoin bill that could position the city as a hub for bank-grade, interoperable stablecoins and as a gateway for regional digital currency initiatives. Meanwhile, Singapore is expected to further expand the use of tokenised payment solutions, including stablecoins, by integrating traditional financial services with crypto-backed products.
North America accounted for $95b in payments, followed by Europe at $50b. Latin America and Africa each contributed less than $1b.
The findings suggest stablecoins are increasingly being used for settlement, liquidity management, and reducing payment friction. “Taken together, these patterns suggest that adoption of stablecoins is taking hold in a limited number of proven use cases, with broader scale dependent on how successfully these can be expanded and replicated elsewhere,” McKinsey said.
Spending via stablecoin-linked cards—allowing consumers to pay merchants without converting funds through exchanges or banks—rose to $4.5b in 2025, marking a 673% jump from a year earlier.
Business-to-business (B2B) transactions led the way, reaching $226b, or roughly 60% of global stablecoin payment volumes in 2025—up 733% from 2024, according to McKinsey and Artemis Analytics.
Overall, total stablecoin transaction volumes are estimated at as much as $35t annually, though McKinsey noted that not all of these transactions represent end-user payments.
Click here for Finance and Investing
