invezz.com
While stablecoin adoption has been on an upward trajectory, a new study by payments giant Visa and blockchain data platform Allium Labs, suggests that only 10% may be from real people.
Over 90% of stablecoin transaction volume not by real users
Per the details in a new report, only $149 billion of the staggering $2.2 trillion stablecoin transaction volume in April was organic. That’s about 10% of the monthly volume.
The rest, over 90% of the total transaction volume during the month, was down to bots and large-scale trading activity. Details of the study come only a few days after Allium Labs and Visa collaborated to launch an onchain analytics dashboard.
According to details on the Visa Onchain Analytics Dashboard, total stablecoin transaction volume across public blockchains in the past 30 days currently stands at $2.4 trillion.
There’s been over 337 million transactions involving stablecoins in the period.
Stablecoin growth
Visa’s study results, shared in a report Bloomberg published on Monday, challenges the longstanding claim that stablecoin are revolutionizing the payments industry. In most cases, growth for top stablecoins Tether (USDT) and USDC, which dominate the market with over 97% of total market share, have pointed towards this fact.
Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, commented on this in April as the company unveiled its collaboration with Allium Labs.
1/ After seeing this line chart created by @nic__carter showing stablecoin volume compared to established payment networks, we decided to partner with @AlliumLabs to create the Visa Onchain Analytics Dashboard as a public resource to take a closer look at stablecoin activity. pic.twitter.com/NInVklRKph
— Cuy Sheffield (@cuysheffield) April 25, 2024
Despite the tiny numbers of genuine user volumes in stablecoin payments, market experts are bullish on role of stablecoins in the payments space. Data shows the monthly active user count for stablecoins has grown to 27.5 million across the sector.
Analysts at Bernstein project that the stablecoin market could grow to $2.8 trillion over the next four years. However, the nascent industry may need to ramp up efforts to bring its main use case to real people.
Per data from CoinGecko, the stablecoins market cap currently stands at just over $160 billion. USDT has seen a 24-volume of over $36 billion, while USDC is at over $5 billion in the same period as of Monday, May 6.
The post Visa study shows only 10% of stablecoin transactions are real users appeared first on Invezz