(SeaPRwire) –
By: Oliver Hawthorne
The stablecoin market has stopped growing. That is the uncomfortable fact Standard Chartered accepted this week. The bank moved its $2 trillion forecast to 2030, two years later than the original call. Supply has sat near $309 billion for a year, trapped inside a $300 billion to $320 billion band. But here is the contradiction every serious market participant should feel: usage keeps climbing. Monthly transfer value averaged just under $10 trillion in 2026, up from $4 trillion in 2025. Supply flat. Movement exploding. That is not a stalled market. That is a market changing shape.
Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s head of digital assets research, called the slowdown cyclical, not structural. Weak crypto activity is the reason, and past flat periods were followed by renewed growth once markets recovered. The evidence cuts both ways. Onchain transfer value hit a monthly record of $19 trillion in May. Average monthly velocity doubled to about 30 times from 15 times in 2025. That means the same stock of coins is working much harder. The split between the two dominant tokens tells the real story. Tether’s USDT velocity stayed near seven times. Circle’s USDC jumped to about 80 times from 45 times. Kendrick attributes the gap to use cases. USDT functions as dollar savings in emerging markets. USDC is used for payments, financial transactions, and early payments between AI agents. USDC also leads the small AI agent transaction market. That gap matters because velocity changes the competitive field.
Then consider the new entrants. Kendrick expects the toughest competition in developed market payments. USDG, M^0, and A+, a planned bank-backed shared stablecoin network, are all chasing the same rails. A key detail: banks inside A+ would keep the reserve income. How issuers and networks split reserve yield may decide who wins share. Regulation is the other force. The US Treasury proposed rules in August that limit issuance to federally or state-authorized issuers. Licensing requirements are expected to take effect in January 2027. The FDIC proposed stripping stablecoin holders from pass-through deposit insurance. The Financial Accounting Standards Board proposed an update in August that could change how firms report stablecoins. The report was released Oct. 14, 2026, with supply still near $309 billion.
Now the commercial loop. Stablecoin supply was the old scoreboard. The new scoreboard is control over reserve yield and settlement flow. Banks want the interest. Payment networks want the turnover. USDC’s 80x velocity shows that payment use can generate fees even with a flat float, but it also shows a threat: high velocity means each coin is doing many jobs, and any competitor that offers better liquidity will drain volume. A stablecoin that changes hands 80 times a month behaves like a clearing system. A stablecoin that changes hands seven times behaves like a deposit. Those are different businesses with different margins. Tether’s 7x velocity is slower, yet its holders are dollar savers, not transactors, so the revenue is sticky and less dependent on payment infrastructure.
Regulation is the pivot. If other countries follow the GENIUS Act, Tether’s emerging market lead becomes a compliance burden rather than a moat. Authorized issuers will corner the legal market, and reserve yield splits will become the main competitive weapon. The endgame is not a $2 trillion balance sheet. It is a worldwide settlement network run by whoever controls the reserve economics. Watch the network deals, not the issuance totals.
Author bio: Oliver Hawthorne, a Principal Correspondent at an international technology review, covers fintech infrastructure, digital asset markets, and the institutional shift toward programmable money.