The largest market for stablecoins is not cross-border payments.

Author: Prathik Desai

Original Title: The Maturity Fingerprint

Translation and Editing: BitpushNews

Everyone believes stablecoins are growing. In just two years, their circulating supply has more than doubled, and adjusted transaction volume has tripled. Last month, the monthly adjusted trading volume for stablecoins hit a record high. Some dismiss these numbers, while crypto Twitter (CT) celebrates.

But numbers alone don’t fully explain the nature of this growth. Equally important is the context in which it occurs—who is using stablecoins, for what purposes, and whether usage patterns are changing. Allium has provided a preview of their latest report on stablecoin infrastructure—“Stablecoins: The Rise of a New Payment Trajectory.” This is a very important report because the charts show that stablecoin use is shifting from enabling low-cost cross-border remittances to supporting general commercial and vendor payments between businesses.

Most current debates about stablecoins focus on whether they are primarily financial products (like banks, bond wrappers, yield carriers) or simply payment infrastructure. Policy discussions about stablecoin interest often assume they are mainly financial instruments. But the data in the report offers a different answer: recent stablecoin activity increasingly resembles a payment trajectory rather than a savings product.

This mirrors the evolution pattern of the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network: from initially replacing paper checks for payroll to becoming the backbone for general business, B2B payments, and consumer bill payments.

This article will use data from Allium’s stablecoin infrastructure report to explain why this shift is changing our view of stablecoin trajectories.

Divergence in Speed

Since January 2024, the circulating supply of stablecoins (total supply minus non-circulating supply) has grown by over 100%. During the same period, adjusted transaction volume (excluding wash trades, internal transfers, and circular transactions) increased by 317%.

In any new asset’s growth phase, supply tends to grow faster than usage. As the asset matures, usage growth outpaces supply growth. This is because holders are increasingly spending the asset. Here, the fact that adjusted transaction volume is growing much faster than circulating supply indicates stablecoins are transitioning from being primarily a store of value to becoming a more popular medium of exchange or transfer of value.

This shift is reflected in the velocity of stablecoins, calculated as adjusted transaction volume divided by circulating supply.

Allium

The velocity of stablecoins has increased from 2.6 times to over 6 times in the past two years, indicating that each dollar of stablecoin supply is now turning over 2.3 times more actively than in January. Comparing this to traditional payment trajectories highlights how mature stablecoin use has become.

Another key indicator of stablecoin maturity is the number of transactions. This metric is less affected by large-value noise. When the number of payment transactions grows faster than the total transaction value, it suggests the average payment size is decreasing. This behavior is typical of a payment trajectory establishing itself, rather than an experimental tool shuttling between exchanges.

This raises a question: who is making these payments, and what are they paying for?

In 2025, consumer-to-consumer (C2C) remains the largest channel, ahead of consumer-to-business (C2B), business-to-business (B2B), and business-to-consumer (B2C). However, its growth rate is the slowest among the four.

The slowdown in C2C growth further confirms the maturing use of stablecoins, as peer-to-peer transfers are the simplest use case. They don’t require merchant integration, invoicing tools, APIs, or complex procedures. This is the typical starting point for any new payment technology.

Ten years ago, when India launched the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), retail users led the adoption driven by cashback and other customer acquisition strategies. I remember transferring between my two accounts using Google Pay (initially launched as Tez in India) just because it offered me a one-dollar cashback. Only after business tools, reporting, and dedicated payment confirmation audio devices (speakers) were introduced did stores and institutions join in.

As infrastructure matures, commercial use cases begin to take market share. This transition appears to be underway.

The high growth in C2B indicates more users are using stablecoins for general commerce, subscriptions, and merchant payments. Meanwhile, B2B growth suggests commercial counterparties are adopting stablecoins for invoicing, supply chain payments, and financial operations. These two growth rates (C2B at 131%, B2B at 87%) both exceed the overall payment growth rate of 76%, indicating a rising share of commercial payments.

When combining the increasing C2B transaction volume with the declining average transaction size (from $456 to $256), it suggests a trend toward routine, smaller purchases using stablecoins.

Although P2P still dominates in absolute terms, it is quickly ceding ground. Quarterly share data makes this rotation even more evident.

Allium

After dropping below 50% in Q1 2025, C2C’s share of total payments has never exceeded 50% again.

The world seems to be moving beyond the experimental phase of using stablecoins for low-risk, low-frequency P2P transfers, toward consistent use for high-frequency payments.

When I first tracked stablecoin adoption, one of the mainstream narratives was how they could enable cross-border remittances, potentially disrupting Western Union by allowing workers in developed economies to send money home without losing 7-8% in fees. That story still holds, but perhaps it’s no longer the main narrative.

Interestingly, the domestic consumption scenario has quietly overtaken all others. The C2C (person-to-person) market share has not returned to 50% for over a year, a metric that has never been a hot topic in crypto discussions. Yet, this metric marks the shift of stablecoins from a “cryptocurrency product” to “financial infrastructure”—making transactions between consumers and businesses, or between businesses, possible.

Another point worth noting is that Allium’s reported payment transaction volume is based on their ability to cover, identify, and tag wallets. While this data shows that payments account for only 2-3% of the adjusted total stablecoin transaction volume, this is only a lower bound—many wallets are likely not covered by Allium’s analysis.

Next, I will focus on two directions: whether the share of C2B (individuals to merchants) and B2B (business to business) transactions will continue to rise, and whether the average transaction size can stay low over the coming quarters. If these trends persist even amid a bearish crypto market, it would indicate that stablecoin payment infrastructure is truly breaking free from the speculative cycle of crypto markets.