Standard Chartered still expects the stablecoin market to reach $2 trillion, but now puts that milestone in 2030 instead of 2028. Supply growth has stalled this year, while transfer activity keeps rising. The bank names regulation as a major risk to the forecast.
Standard Chartered has pushed its $2 trillion forecast for the stablecoin market to 2030, up from 2028, after supply growth stalled this year. Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank's global head of digital assets research, laid out the change in a Wednesday report.
Supply has stayed between $300 billion and $320 billion over the past 12 months and currently stands at around $309 billion, Kendrick said. He views the slowdown as cyclical rather than structural because it came during weak crypto market activity.
Usage keeps growing while supply stalls
Transaction activity tells a different story. Kendrick said raw onchain transfer value hit a monthly record of $19 trillion in May, and monthly volume has averaged just under $10 trillion so far this year, up from $4 trillion in 2025.
Average monthly velocity, which measures how many times each dollar stablecoin changes hands, has doubled to around 30 times from 15 times in 2025, according to Kendrick. USDT's monthly velocity has stayed near seven times, while USDC's rose to around 80 times from 45 times.
Kendrick said the gap reflects how people use each coin. USDT is mainly used for dollar savings in emerging markets, while USDC is used more for payments, financial transactions and early payments between AI agents.
Challengers and regulation
Kendrick expects the most competition in stablecoin payments and transactions in developed markets. He named Open USD (OUSD), M^0 and A+, a planned network that would let banks issue a shared stablecoin and keep the income from its reserves, as potential challengers. According to Kendrick, speaking to The Block: "Issues like yield capture will ultimately determine how this sector plays out."
Regulation is a major risk to the $2 trillion forecast, Kendrick said, and much depends on whether other countries adopt rules similar to the U.S. GENIUS Act. The GENIUS Act is due to take effect in January 2027, and Kendrick said implementing those rules could create more competition from bank-backed and multi-issuer stablecoins.
Source: The Block
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