An investigation by Coinbase and The Block Pro Research reveals that individuals transfer upwards of $400 million in stablecoins hourly on average, with most settlements occurring outside traditional American banking operational times.
Entitled “The Always-On Dollar,” the report highlights that organic transfer volume for stablecoins averaged more than $400 million per hour throughout the third quarter. Furthermore, approximately 73% of transactions occurred outside standard U.S. banking hours during the twelve months leading up to July 31.
“For businesses, that availability can also make working capital more productive,” the research points out. “Faster settlement can reduce delays and the need to fund payment accounts in advance, leaving more cash available for operations or investment rather than tied up supporting transfers.”
Meanwhile, everyday consumers save money on remittance costs by utilizing stablecoins. According to the publication, transferring a $200 remittance utilizing USDC on Base is roughly 86% less expensive than executing the same transfer via legacy networks. The document highlights that this offers substantial advantages to migrant laborers.
As awareness of these advantages expands, adjusted stablecoin transaction volume has multiplied by four since early 2023, touching $891 billion during Q3. Based on current expansion trajectories, the document projects that quarterly adjusted transfer volume for stablecoins will hit $1.5 trillion by closing out 2027.
The complete consequences of stablecoin integration remain ahead of us. The research estimates that shifting 80% of cross-border transactions onto stablecoin networks could add an extra $155 billion to worldwide annual GDP.
In the agentic economy
Stablecoins are currently held by roughly 293 million distinct blockchain wallets, surpassing the combined cardholder count of Discover and American Express while nearly doubling the mobile banking user totals of Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase combined. Nevertheless, blockchain addresses do not automatically equate to distinct people.
Traditional finance is actively participating as well, with seven out of the top ten domestic American banks having experimented with stablecoins or tokenized deposits for clearing, while the remaining three have indicated intentions to do so.
Moving forward, the study suggests that stablecoins will naturally serve as the payment infrastructure for AI agents. McKinsey projects that by the year 2030, autonomous artificial intelligence agents will facilitate between $3 trillion and $5 trillion in worldwide B2C commerce.
“With stablecoins, an AI agent can pay another agent for a task, purchase a single API call, or buy a small amount of data or compute on demand,” the report notes. “This makes tiny, one-off transactions practical without a subscription or billing account – a model legacy payment systems were not built to support.”
Originally published at https://www.theblock.co/news/web3/2026-10-20-stablecoins-move-400-million-per-hour-421111.
