Stablecoins are transferring past crypto buying and selling desks into real-world funds—however comfort comes at a value.
New knowledge from the New York-based blockchain analytics agency Artemis exhibits speedy progress in stablecoin funds throughout sectors, at the same time as charges usually match or exceed these in conventional finance.
Abstract
- Artemis reviews $136 billion in stablecoin funds from 33 companies between January 2023 and August 2025, with B2B transactions main at $76 billion yearly.
- Tether’s USDT instructions 85% of the stablecoin market, totally on the Tron blockchain, adopted by USDC.
- Stablecoin funds face excessive charges, particularly on exchanges, and stay small in comparison with conventional monetary programs, with blockchain congestion additional escalating prices.
Artemis surveyed 22 stablecoin fee companies and supplemented estimates from 11 others, attributing $136 billion in stablecoin transactions between January 2023 and August 2025, with an annualized run fee of $122 billion. When it comes to exercise:
- B2B funds lead the pack ($76 billion annualized)
- Peer-to-peer ($19 billion)
- Card-linked ($18 billion)
- B2C ($3.3 billion)
- Prefunding ($3.6 billion).
Tether’s USDT dominates with 85% of quantity, adopted by Circle’s USDC, totally on Tron, Ethereum, Binance Sensible Chain, and Polygon.
Stablecoin evolution
Artemis co-founder Anthony Yim and knowledge scientist Andrew Van Aken word that stablecoins have developed from dealer instruments to a mainstream fee technique. Main companies like Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Stripe are integrating them.
The dataset is being touted as essentially the most complete thus far, protecting 33 companies and representing nearly all of rising stablecoin fee quantity.
However progress has a draw back: whereas peer-to-peer transfers on environment friendly blockchains like Solana can value fractions of a cent, trade and conversion charges—together with buying and selling charges, community transfers, and FX spreads—can shortly erode that benefit.
Shark Tank choose Kevin O’Leary lately highlighted the ache level on X: Ethereum community congestion drove charges previous $1,000 for small transactions, underscoring persistent value challenges.
“That’s like paying a thousand-dollar toll to drive on a one-lane freeway,” he mentioned. “It proves what I’ve been saying for years: when actual site visitors hits the system, it cracks below strain.”
O’Leary added:
“For over a decade we’ve talked about going on-chain, and now with real-world adoption lastly occurring, the cracks are displaying. Innovation isn’t nearly hype or hypothesis, it’s about constructing infrastructure that may really deal with scale.”
Stablecoin regulation, conflicts of curiosity
The report arrives months after President Donald Trump signed the Genius Act, which established a federal framework for stablecoin issuers. Critics say it did little to deal with shopper safety or conflicts of curiosity.
For instance, Trump and his household management round 60% of World Liberty Monetary, a crypto enterprise that launched its personal stablecoin, USD1. The agency lately gained momentum when a $2 billion funding fund within the United Arab Emirates used USD1 to accumulate a stake in Binance, the globe’s largest crypto trade.
This week, Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who served jail time after failing to stop prison money-moving exercise on his platform.
As with different stablecoins, USD1 is pegged to mounted belongings, such because the U.S. greenback, permitting issuers to generate earnings by amassing curiosity on Treasury bonds and different reserves backing the token.
Nonetheless, Artemis’ findings illustrate that stablecoin funds are surging throughout enterprise and shopper channels, regardless of remaining small relative to conventional programs.
