Stablecoin Transactions Hit $35 Trillion, Real Payments Mini

A report by McKinsey and Artemis Analytics reveals that stablecoins facilitated approximately $35 trillion in on-chain settlements last year, with only about 1% attributed to real-world payments. The report estimates that stablecoin transactions genuinely used for payments amounted to around $380 billion, primarily comprising B2B settlements ($226 billion), cross-border payroll and remittances ($90 billion), and capital market settlements ($80 billion). The study highlights that most stablecoin transactions are still driven by crypto trading, internal transfers, or protocol-level operations, with real payments representing less than 0.02% of the global payments market exceeding $200 trillion.