Stablecoins Surpass Mastercard & PayPal in Transaction Volume

Key Takeaways

In 2022, stablecoins on layer 1’s reached a $6.87T transaction volume.
Stablecoins have achieved higher adoption rates than Ethereum.

In 2022, stablecoins on various layer 1 networks reached a transaction volume of $6.87 trillion, overtaking traditional payment giants like Mastercard and PayPal. Comparative data from 2022 showed that Mastercard settled transactions worth $6.57T, while PayPal settled transactions worth $1.3T, according to data from Coinmetrics and Bloomberg.

Despite the challenges faced by the broader crypto market in 2023, such as strict regulations in the United States and continuing bear market conditions, the adoption rate of stablecoins like USDT and USDC is even higher than that of Ethereum. Since 2021, the number of stablecoin addresses holding more than $1 has grown seven times faster than Ethereum addresses with the same balance.

While stablecoins have seen a considerable rise in adoption, their annual transaction count stands at merely 0.5-3% of traditional payment networks, as per Coinmetrics and Glassnode statistics. One reason decentralized networks might not be as widely adopted could be the high transaction fees and throughput limitations of platforms like Ethereum.

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