👀 Stablecoin adoption accelerates: retail transaction volumes increased tenfold in 2025

👀 Stablecoin adoption accelerates: retail transaction volumes increased tenfold in 2025

Throughout 2025, retail activity involving stablecoins expanded at an unprecedented pace. Specifically, the number of transactions rose from 314 million in January to 3.2 billion in December, representing a tenfold increase over the year.

▶️ Data source: the figures originate from Orbital’s fourth-quarter report, produced in partnership with blockchain data provider Artemis. The analysis covered stablecoin transactions below USD 10,000 and also incorporated a dedicated assessment of stablecoin flows on centralized exchanges, reflecting emerging models of market specialization.

▶️ Asset differentiation:

👉 USDT accounted for 73% of retail transactions. The number of daily active users doubled from 1.3 million to 2.6 million.

👉 USDC captured a smaller share of total transactions; however, it dominated higher-value payments, pointing to a usage profile more closely aligned with institutional or high-ticket transactions.

▶️ Geographic segmentation: In emerging markets, where platforms such as Binance, OKX, and HTX are widely adopted, users predominantly favor USDT on low-cost, high-throughput networks like Tron and BSC.

In developed markets, where Coinbase and Crypto.com have stronger penetration, users show a clear preference for USDC and for networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, and Base.

▶️ Market dynamics: In December, stablecoin supply growth decelerated to 1.3%, while annual growth in the number of transactions exceeded 105%, more than doubling overall supply growth (48%). This divergence suggests that each additional dollar of supply supported a disproportionately higher level of payment activity, underscoring a structural shift toward functional usage rather than speculative holding.

▶️ Payment infrastructure: Approximately two-thirds of consumer-to-merchant payments were executed via exchange-linked accounts, rather than self-custodied wallets. This highlights the extent to which exchange withdrawal mechanisms and default network configurations shape the technical requirements for merchants accepting stablecoin payments.

👉 Binance, HTX, and Coinbase prioritize their proprietary layer-two networks or sidechains (BSC, Tron, and Base, respectively).

👉 Bybit, Bitget, and Gate.io support a broader selection of blockchains, applying neutral routing across multiple networks.

👉 OKX maintains a more restricted blockchain offering, avoiding networks associated with competing platforms and promoting alternatives such as Tron or Ethereum.

▶️ Macroeconomic context: An analysis of premiums paid by retail investors identified markets in which stablecoins operate as alternative economic channels, rather than merely as conventional payment instruments. In the fourth quarter, premiums reached 97% in Algeria🇩🇿, 71% in Bolivia🇧🇴, and 41% in Venezuela🇻🇪. These elevated levels are closely linked to capital movements and local currency depreciation, factors that significantly increase reliance on stablecoin-based payments.

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