The cryptocurrency market has weakened significantly over the past year, but stablecoins appear to have avoided the price drop. The volume of cross-border transfers using these digital assets increased by almost 78 percent over twelve months. Data from Chainalysis suggests that stablecoins are increasingly being used not for speculation, but for everyday payments, cross-country money transfers, or protecting savings against a weak domestic currency.
While the value of the overall cryptocurrency market declined, stablecoins experienced significant growth in cross-border payments. According to the new Global Crypto Adoption Index 2026 by Chainalysis, the volume of cross-border stablecoin transfers grew year-on-year by 77.5 percent during the twelve months ending in June 2026.
The total value of these transfers reached 220.3 billion dollars, compared to 124.2 billion dollars in the previous comparable period. According to data cited by Cointelegraph, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies fell by 37 percent to approximately 2.1 trillion dollars during the same period.
The development thus shows a rather fundamental difference between two ways of utilizing cryptocurrencies. The market downturn primarily affected the part of the industry dependent on price growth and speculative trading. Conversely, the payment use of digital currencies continued to expand.
“The bear market hit the price-sensitive part of crypto and left the payments part alone,” Chainalysis summarizes the difference.
Table of Contents:
- Stablecoins are transforming from a traders' tool into payment infrastructure
- In Asia, stablecoins address fragmented payment systems
- Thousands of new payment routes are emerging
- Blockchain is fast, but problems can arise when converting back to fiat currency
- Stablecoins Are Getting Clearer Rules
- Western Union and MoneyGram Are Integrating Stablecoins into Remittances
- They Are Growing Even as the Rest of the Crypto Market Declines
Stablecoins are transforming from a traders’ tool into payment infrastructure
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a relatively stable value. Most often pegged to the US dollar, unlike Bitcoin, their goal is not significant price growth. For users, they can function more like a digital equivalent of dollar cash, which can be transferred via blockchain.
This very characteristic is gradually moving them beyond the purely cryptocurrency world. Chainalysis states in its data that the growth in cross-border stablecoin usage was driven by transfers with an average value of approximately $3,000.
Such an amount, according to the analytical company, corresponds more to practical use than to large institutional trades. Stablecoins can be used, for example, for payments to foreign suppliers, sending money to family in another country, or moving savings from an unstable domestic currency to a dollar-pegged digital asset.
Philip Gradwell, Vice President of Economics at Tether, noted that transactional activity is becoming more regular. According to him, money is flowing between wallets at a steady pace instead of short-term surges.
“This is a hallmark of trade and business activity, not speculation,” Gradwell stated for Chainalysis.
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In Asia, stablecoins address fragmented payment systems
At the same time, the reasons for using stablecoins differ significantly by region. Tianwei Liu, co-founder and CEO of StraitsX, highlighted the situation in Asia in an interview with Cointelegraph, where a large number of currencies and payment systems coexist. According to him, it is precisely this fragmentation that creates demand for settlement via stablecoins.
Furthermore, the technology is gradually extending to everyday payments. A stablecoin does not necessarily have to be a product that the user directly interacts with. It can function in the background of a payment method that the customer already commonly knows and uses.
Outside of Asia, stablecoins address different problems, according to Liu. In Latin America, Africa, or the Middle East, important reasons for their use may include access to the US dollar, international money transfers, or the desire to protect savings from high inflation or capital movement restrictions.
Thousands of new payment routes are emerging
The expansion of stablecoins is also evident in the number of countries and payment routes where these digital assets are used.
During the period under review, Chainalysis recorded 4,708 new cross-border corridors, which collectively transferred stablecoins worth 2.64 billion dollars. In this case, a payment corridor refers to a connection between the country from which the money originates and the country of its recipient.
However, the total volume remains highly concentrated. According to the Global Crypto Adoption Index 2026, more than 96.1 percent of the measurable value of stablecoin transfers was accounted for by the most utilized quarter of cross-border corridors.
More interesting developments, however, are occurring on less utilized routes. The remaining three-quarters of corridors transferred stablecoins worth 8.66 billion dollars. In the previous period, this amounted to only 260 million dollars.
Stablecoin payments are thus beginning to gain traction beyond a few of the largest and long-established routes. According to Chainalysis, a significant portion of this activity was constituted by the largest stablecoin, USDT.
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Blockchain is fast, but problems can arise when converting back to fiat currency
However, stablecoins are not yet a universal replacement for the current international payment system.
Vincent Chok, co-founder and CEO of First Digital, told Cointelegraph that traditional payment infrastructure still works well on established routes. The situation becomes complicated when a business needs to transfer money between markets with different banking systems, currencies, and settlement times.
Stablecoins offer an alternative, but even blockchain does not remove all obstacles. Their further development depends, among other things, on clear rules, a reliable option to convert stablecoins back into their underlying currency, access to local currencies, and integration with the existing financial system.
The blockchain transaction itself can be very fast. The more difficult part occurs off-chain – for example, when converting a stablecoin into local currency, fulfilling regulatory and control obligations, or subsequently moving money through traditional banks.
“On-chain settlement is fast, but it doesn’t address the off-chain parts,” Chok pointed out.
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Stablecoins Are Getting Clearer Rules
The growth also comes at a time when stablecoins are coming under significantly more precise regulatory scrutiny.
In the United States, the GENIUS Act was signed on July 18, 2025, which introduced federal rules for payment stablecoins.
The European Union included them in the MiCA regulation. According to the European Commission, the MiCA provisions relating to stablecoins apply from June 30, 2024, while the full framework became fully applicable at the end of the same year.
Hong Kong has also introduced its own licensing regime. According to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, its rules came into effect on August 1, 2025, introducing a licensing regime for issuers of fiat-pegged stablecoins.
Stablecoins are thus gradually moving from a less clearly regulated segment of the cryptocurrency market closer to formally regulated financial services.
Western Union and MoneyGram Are Integrating Stablecoins into Remittances
This trend is also evident among traditional companies focused on international money transfers.
In August 2026, Western Union launched Stablecard in 37 countries. It is a digital wallet and Visa card that allows users to hold, receive, transfer, and spend the dollar stablecoin USDPT. The company plans to further expand the service’s availability.
MoneyGram has also moved in a similar direction. In September, it announced its own Visa card linked to stablecoin infrastructure. Colombia became the first market, with the company planning to enter additional markets later this year.
The involvement of two well-known remittance providers shows where the entire market can move. For the average customer, the result may not be another cryptocurrency application full of tokens and blockchain addresses.
A stablecoin can function merely as a technological layer in the background of a wallet or payment card, which, from the user’s perspective, does not differ much from the services they already use today.
They Are Growing Even as the Rest of the Crypto Market Declines
The most important signal from the new Chainalysis data may not be the cross-border transfers’ growth of nearly 78 percent itself. More significant is that it occurred during a substantial decline in the broader cryptocurrency market.
Stablecoins are thus gradually separating from the traditional cryptocurrency narrative primarily based on Bitcoin’s price and speculative cycles. For some users, they are no longer an investment from which they expect appreciation but a means to transfer dollar value between countries.
Their further growth, however, will depend on whether it is possible to connect fast blockchain transfers with the much more complex part of the financial system outside of the blockchain – namely banks, local currencies, regulatory requirements, and the ability to reliably convert stablecoins back into regular money at any time.
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