According to a report from ARK Invest, in 2024, the transaction volume of stablecoins totaled $15.6 trillion. Accounting for US $15.6 trillion, or 119%, more than Visa’s total. The report also names Tron Network as having the majority of transactions in the sector of stablecoins, with Tether’s USDT leading the way.
While the digital asset market has traded bearish for an extended period. Stablecoin adoption has surged and is processing much more transaction value than traditional payment processor Visa and Mastercard.
Stablecoin Adoption Outpaces Traditional Payment Networks
Today, stablecoins have ushered in a new era where they handle transaction volumes exceeding Visa and Mastercard together. In 2024, Visa processed about $13.1 trillion, but stablecoins advanced even higher and became more important for global finance.
As the market cap of the crypto industry shrinks, transactions with stablecoins spiked in line with user preference for digital assets with stable value, for payments and settlements.
Visa and Mastercard are minted off by stablecoins at monthly rates of 110 million transactions, or absolutely zero point four 1% and absolutely zero point seven 2%, respectively. So these stablecoin transactions are fewer but with much higher average transaction value than what card networks do.
Tron Network’s USDT Dominates Global Stablecoin Transactions
In 2024, Tron Network became a good blockchain for stablecoins because of its cost efficiency and adoption in markets. Volumes of USDT transactions on Tron amounted to $5.46 trillion.
It was also one of the most active stablecoin network in terms of transfers processed through the year. Tron also saw high transfers with over 750 million.
ARK Invest’s data suggests Tron’s dominance in countries with high traffic such as Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia is driven by low fees. The importance of the network also shows the growing need for blockchain-based financial infrastructure in economies that have unstable fiat currencies or poor banking matters.
In December 2024, the daily transaction volume for stablecoin surpassed $270 billion and monthly totaled at $2.7 trillion. Across Solana, Ethereum, Base, and Tron, the year-end surge was due to increased adoption across multiple blockchains.
It shows how the market has been preferring networks that are productive of high-speed, low-cost transactions. This is why Solana, Tron, Ethereum, and Base were the top blockchains for the transactions of the stablecoin. This fits in with the trend around the use of Layer 2 scaling solutions, with Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base gaining retail transaction flow as their transaction fee is reduced.
USDT and USDC Maintain Market Dominance
In 2024, 90% was between Tether (USDT) and Circle’s USD Coin (USDC). But stablecoins have moved beyond one blockchain and onto another, making this a proven medium of digital finance. There was a $203 billion total stablecoin supply, which is equivalent to 0.97% of the US M2 money supply.
In December, several active stablecoin addresses reached an all-time high of 23 million. It maintained its reign over Tron as most dominant in active addresses, and even in stablecoin transactions and adoption.
Stablecoins are gaining increasing importance in cross-border payments, remittances, and on-chain settlements and are becoming more important to the rising user base.
Additionally, stablecoin growth has also contributed to the demand for U.S. Treasuries, with issuers involved like Tether and Circle being the 20 largest holders of U.S. government debt as of December 2024.
Growing engagement from emerging markets in financial transactions via stablecoins translates to the global demand for digital assets backed by the U.S. dollar that is not de-dollarized.
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