Standard Chartered Bank has postponed its $2 trillion stablecoin market projection to 2030, moving it back from 2028, following a stall in supply growth this year.
The institution is maintaining its $2 trillion estimate, though it now anticipates that the sector will require an extra two years to hit that milestone, explained Geoffrey Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, in a report published Wednesday.
Stablecoin supply has stayed confined between $300 billion and $320 billion throughout the prior 12 months, currently resting at approximately $309 billion, Kendrick pointed out. He interprets this slowdown as cyclical instead of structural because it coincided with subdued cryptocurrency market activity.
Previous phases of flat or declining stablecoin supply were succeeded by renewed expansion once crypto markets rebounded, Kendrick observed.
‘Usage is still growing’
Although stablecoin supply expansion has plateaued, utilization and transaction activity have kept rising, Kendrick stated, pointing out that raw onchain transfer volume achieved a monthly peak of $19 trillion in May. Monthly volume has averaged just under $10 trillion so far this year, increasing from $4 trillion in 2025, he added.
Simultaneously, the average monthly stablecoin velocity, tracking the frequency with which each dollar-pegged stablecoin changes hands, has doubled to roughly 30 times this year compared to 15 times in 2025, Kendrick detailed.
USDT’s monthly velocity has remained close to seven times. Conversely, USDC’s velocity climbed to about 80 times this year from 45 times in 2025.
Kendrick attributed this discrepancy to the distinct ways both stablecoins are utilized. USDT functions primarily for dollar-denominated savings across emerging regions, whereas USDC sees greater application in payments, financial transfers, and early transactions between artificial intelligence agents.
Kendrick foresees the fiercest competition in stablecoin payments and financial transactions within developed economies. He mentioned that potential contenders feature Open USD (OUSD) [comparable to Global Dollar Network (USDG)], stablecoin infrastructure provider M^0, and A+, a proposed network that would enable banks to mint a joint stablecoin and retain the yield generated by its reserves.
“It is the DM transactions/TradFi replacement sector which we see as the most contested going forward,” Kendrick shared with The Block. “I highlight a number of challengers that compete at the margin – USDG for venues, M^0 as longer-run infrastructure, and the multi-bank network model (A+) for banks outside the incumbents’ existing yield-share terms. Issues like yield capture will ultimately determine how this sector plays out.”
Regulation remains a risk
Kendrick stated that regulatory policy poses a significant hazard to his $2 trillion target, noting that much hinges on whether international jurisdictions implement regulations akin to the U.S. GENIUS Act and how those mandates influence stablecoin adoption.
“The main threat to USDT’s EM [emerging market] dominance would be if global regulators were to closely follow the lead of the U.S. GENIUS Act,” Kendrick further observed.
The GENIUS Act is scheduled to go into effect in January 2027. Kendrick expressed that enforcing these guidelines could foster heightened competition stemming from bank-backed and multi-issuer stablecoin alternatives.
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Originally published at https://www.theblock.co/news/web3/2026-10-14-standard-chartered-stablecoin-market-report-418578.
