Bitcoin may dominate cryptocurrency headlines, but the real growth story of the next five years will be stablecoins, the digital dollars that are modernizing the way money moves around the world.
Yes, the original cryptocurrency is quickly becoming an ideal non-sovereign global store of value, with a market capitalization of $2.3 trillion, but stablecoins serve a transactional purpose and have therefore already vastly surpassed bitcoin in daily transactions. On October 6, bitcoin’s 24-hour volume was $63.8 billion, compared to $146 billion for stablecoins, more than double the transaction volume.
There is a simple reason for this. Stablecoins are not just an investable asset to hold, but they have real-world utility. Stablecoins are powering much more than just DeFi. They are increasingly used as a global currency that powers cross-border payments and money flows. Furthermore, with the integration of artificial intelligence into everyday life and soon into commerce, stablecoins are likely to be the currency of machine-to-machine transactions by AI agents.
Bitcoin’s uses are growing as wrapped BTC and emerging Bitcoin Layer 2 networks seek to integrate it into DeFi and allow dApps to be built on top of it, but fundamentally, bitcoin will remain a store of value. Other blockchains do a much better job of providing a decentralized, smart contract-programmable platform on which to build the future of finance. Stablecoins are specifically designed to offer a better solution for global payments than the traditional, centralized status quo (SWIFT, ACH, and credit card payments). As mainstream adoption grows, stablecoins will capture the majority of daily payments usage.
Chart: Chainalysis Global Adoption Rate 2025
Look at Venezuela, where USDT has become the backbone of daily economic activity. With inflation rampant (the IMF puts it at 180%) and a shortage of physical dollars, this is certainly an extreme example, but it provides a direct use case that shows how easy it is to pay for food or a haircut in stablecoins.
Stablecoins are quickly gaining traction because they do what Bitcoin was never able to do at scale: facilitate instant peer-to-peer payments. Bitcoin’s ten-minute block times, network fees, and volatility make it unsuitable for everyday transactions, while stablecoins settle in seconds, cost pennies (in some cases less than a cent), and preserve stability of value.
It’s about utility
The success of stablecoins is not about speculation but about efficient utility: they are quietly becoming the most widely used form of digital currency around the world. Stablecoins are rapidly revolutionizing the global remittance market, a sector worth around $780 billion a year, by offering faster and lower-cost cross-border transfers.
They are also starting to disrupt the payments market, as giants like Stripe, Visa, PayPal and other fintechs introduce stablecoin payments that are faster, cheaper, usable 24/7 and globally accessible. And as fintechs and payment processors incorporate stablecoins, most people will have no idea that behind the scenes they are using blockchain rails.
The current US administration has made it very clear that it views stablecoins as a financial innovation, vital to maintaining the dollar as the global reserve currency. It has put its full weight behind them, as evidenced by the passage of the GENIUS Act as the first step in this process.
As agencies draft regulatory “rules of the road” for stablecoins under the GENIUS Act, the devil will be in the details; how reserve assets are defined, which entities can issue dollar-backed tokens, what redemption rights are guaranteed to users, and whether these digital dollars can move freely across public and private blockchains. These options will determine whether US-regulated stablecoins can compete globally or be buried under conflicting oversight. This administration must ensure it allows dollar-backed stablecoins to dominate the world stage, or risk losing control of the future of money.
I believe that in the short term, for all the reasons listed above, the total minted value of stablecoins could exceed the market capitalization of bitcoin.
