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0 CommentsAmid a massive downturn in the crypto market, stablecoin usage and adoption are still increasing. Stablecoin settlement reached $8 trillion in 2022, rivaling Visa with $12 trillion.
According to CoinMetrics, the total value settled by them in 2021 was just over $6 trillion. In 2022, the value settled could top $8 trillion.
Peter Johnson, co-head of venture at Brevan Howard Digital, recently compared the stablecoin settlements to those of leading credit cards. He noted that stablecoin settlements had already surpassed MasterCard and American Express. He also predicted that on-chain stablecoin volumes would surpass those of Visa next year.
“In 2023, on-chain stablecoin volumes will surpass the largest card network, Visa,” he said on Twitter.
Per Johnson, next year’s stablecoin volumes will “also likely surpass the aggregate volume of all four major card networks (Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, and Discover).”
On the other hand, there is a difference between credit card volumes and stablecoin settlements. Credit card transactions usually indicate consumer spending, whereas fiat-pegged crypto assets are primarily used for crypto trading and decentralized finance.
Keeping that in mind, the surge in settlement volumes for stablecoins is even more impressive. Once they are regulated and can be used for payments, that volume will skyrocket.
Currently, stablecoins account for around 16.5% of the entire crypto market cap, with $140 billion in all of them combined, according to CoinGecko.
Tether keeps the lead, with a 47% market share and 66.3 billion USDT circulating. Circle is second with a market share of 31% and 44.3 billion in USDC. Both of them combined cover almost 80% of the whole stablecoin market. This year, both have seen their circulating supply decrease, however, as the bear market persists.
