{"id":70953,"date":"2025-06-02T13:14:50","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T13:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=70953"},"modified":"2025-06-02T13:14:50","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T13:14:50","slug":"stablecoins-are-eating-the-world-quietly-94-billion-says-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=70953","title":{"rendered":"Stablecoins Are Eating the World (Quietly): $94 Billion Says So"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Felipe Montoya<\/strong> | FeLibertarian<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to keep the U.S. the dominant reserve currency in the world, and we will use stablecoins to do that.\u201d
\u200a\u2014\u200aU.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, May\u00a02025<\/em><\/p>\n

While most of the financial world debates regulation, CBDCs, and monetary tightening, a quieter revolution is already underway\u200a\u2014\u200aone happening far from Wall Street boardrooms and IMF white papers. It\u2019s happening in phone screens, APIs, and smart contracts across Latin America, Africa, Asia, and\u00a0beyond.<\/p>\n

According to a newly released and deeply revealing<\/em> report by Artemis, Castle Island, and Dragonfly, over $94.2 billion<\/strong> in stablecoin payments were processed between January 2023 and February 2025 across 31 real-world firms. This isn\u2019t speculation or trading\u200a\u2014\u200athese are actual payments<\/strong> for goods, services, salaries, remittances, and business operations.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just the tip of the\u00a0iceberg<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcb3 From Margins to Mainstream: The Rise of Stablecoin Payments<\/h3>\n

Until recently, stablecoins mainly were seen as tools for crypto traders hedging against volatility. But this study, the most comprehensive of its kind, confirms what many on-the-ground users and builders have been saying for years: stablecoins are becoming a viable alternative payment infrastructure<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the breakdown of the $72.3 billion annualized volume<\/strong> as of early\u00a02025:<\/p>\n

Business-to-Business (B2B):<\/strong>\u00a0$36BPeer-to-Peer (P2P):<\/strong>\u00a0$18BCard-linked spending:<\/strong> $13.2BBusiness-to-Consumer (B2C):<\/strong>\u00a0$3.3BPrefunding\/working capital:<\/strong>\u00a0$2.5B<\/p>\n

The real kicker?<\/em> These figures only account for 1% of all stablecoin onchain activity<\/strong>, suggesting the potential market is orders of magnitude larger<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udf10 The Dollar\u2019s New Skin: USDT, Tron, and a Post-Banking Future<\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s talk infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Tether\u2019s USDT<\/strong> commands ~90% of the market share in actual\u00a0usage.Tron<\/strong> is the dominant blockchain for settlement, particularly in emerging markets such as Colombia, Nigeria, and the Philippines.<\/p>\n

What this tells us is that the world isn\u2019t just dollarizing\u200a\u2014\u200ait\u2019s digitally dollarizing<\/strong>, and doing so via unregulated, programmable, and permissionless rails<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

No clearinghouse. No SWIFT. No 3-day settlement.
Just instant global value transfer at internet\u00a0speed.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udde8\ud83c\uddf4 Colombia, \ud83c\udde7\ud83c\uddf7 Brazil, \ud83c\udde6\ud83c\uddf7 Argentina: LatAm\u2019s Real Stablecoin Economy<\/h3>\n

As a Colombian and fintech advocate, I found the Latin America section of the Artemis report particularly striking. In Brazil and Colombia, USDT<\/strong> transfers based on the Tron blockchain are dominant. Businesses are increasingly holding their treasuries in stablecoins to hedge against inflation<\/strong> and settle cross-border payments<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In Colombia specifically, stablecoin adoption halved the effective inflation rate on company-held funds, from 6.6% down to 2.9%<\/strong>, thanks to treasury management in USD-backed stablecoins.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in Argentina, USDC is gaining unusual traction, likely a result of startup innovation responding to that country\u2019s prolonged monetary\u00a0chaos.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udee0 Real-World Applications: Not Hype, Just\u00a0Utility<\/h3>\n

The companies included in the study\u200a\u2014\u200afrom Bitso Business in Latin America to Yellow Card in Africa and Reap in Asia\u200a\u2014\u200aare integrating stablecoin payment rails not as experiments but as core financial infrastructure<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Reap<\/strong> processes billions in corporate payments monthly via stablecoin-linked Visa\u00a0cards.Bitso Business<\/strong> allows enterprises to bypass high FX fees and\u00a0delays.Huma Finance<\/strong> offers real-time crypto liquidity for Amazon\u2019s global supply chain partners.<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t startups playing with tokens\u200a\u2014\u200athey are infrastructure builders replacing banks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udea8 Why This Matters: A Libertarian Lens<\/h3>\n

From a FeLibertarian perspective, this shift isn\u2019t just technical\u200a\u2014\u200ait\u2019s philosophical. We are witnessing:<\/p>\n

The unbundling of money from the\u00a0state.<\/strong>The decentralization of financial access.<\/strong>A real challenge to monetary monopoly.<\/strong><\/p>\n

With U.S. Treasuries backing 99% of stablecoin supply, stablecoins have quietly become the 14th-largest holder of U.S. debt<\/strong>. Ironically, even as they decentralize access, they reinforce dollar dominance, which makes U.S. regulators walk a delicate line between control and encouragement.<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udded The Road\u00a0Ahead<\/h3>\n

Stablecoins won\u2019t replace the global financial system overnight. But they\u2019re doing something more subversive: operating in parallel<\/strong>, building a permissionless payments layer<\/strong> that is faster, cheaper, and increasingly liquid.<\/p>\n

And the market, from freelancers to CFOs, is already choosing\u00a0it.<\/p>\n

So when we meet tomorrow at StableCon NYC<\/strong>, remember: the real story isn\u2019t just what\u2019s being said on panels\u200a\u2014\u200ait\u2019s what\u2019s already happening on-chain.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udccc Follow FeLibertarian News for more insights into the intersection of money, freedom, and digital sovereignty.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stablecoins Are Eating the World (Quietly): $94 Billion Says So<\/a> was originally published in Coinmonks<\/a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Felipe Montoya | FeLibertarian \u201cWe are going to keep the U.S. the dominant reserve currency in the world, and we will use stablecoins to do that.\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aU.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, May\u00a02025 While most of the financial world debates regulation, CBDCs, and monetary tightening, a quieter revolution is already underway\u200a\u2014\u200aone happening far from Wall Street […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70953"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}