Stablecoins fail to crack 1% of non-wholesale cross-border payments

Consumer-to-business activity represented 22% of digital-token volume.

Stablecoins were used for an estimated $135b in non-wholesale cross-border payments in 2025, equal to 0.31% of the $44.3t market.

That was up from $82b in 2024, when stablecoins accounted for 0.2% of $40.5t in cross-border payments, according to analysis by FXC Intelligence using data from Allium.

Business-to-business payments remained the largest use case for both traditional currency and stablecoin transactions. 

However, they made up 79% of cross-border payments using traditional currency, compared with 49% of payments using stablecoins.

Stablecoins had a larger relative presence in payments involving consumers. 

Consumer-to-consumer transfers accounted for 15% of stablecoin volumes, compared with 5% of traditional currency payments.

Business-to-consumer payments represented 14% of stablecoin transactions and 5% of traditional currency payments. 

Consumer-to-business payments made up 22% of stablecoin volumes, twice their 11% share of traditional currency flows.

The figures show that stablecoins still account for a small share of the overall cross-border payments market, despite faster growth and higher use in consumer-related transactions.