1. Stablecoins have become the internet’s money
As of November 2, 2026, the market capitalization of issued stablecoins is about $299.5 billion.1 That is 47% more than the $203.7 billion of January 1, 2025, and since passing its May 2026 peak ($317.1 billion), it has held at around $300 billion. USDT accounts for 59.8% of the total and USDC for 23.8%. Stablecoins are no longer just a settlement asset shuttling between exchanges. In 2025, on-chain transaction volume settled in stablecoins reached a record $33 trillion.2 A separate analysis of that year’s transactions estimated that genuine economic activity alone, after filtering out bot trading and internal transfers, came to $4.2 trillion, of which $350 billion to $550 billion was payment for goods and services.3 In other words, people are actually sending money and paying for things with stablecoins.Stablecoin market cap · daily
Market capitalization of all issued stablecoins
+47%since Jan 1, 2025
| Date | Market cap |
|---|---|
| 2020-01-01 | $4.2B |
| 2025-01-01 | $203.7B |
| 2026-05-17 | $317.1B |
| 2026-11-02 | $299.5B |
Source: DefiLlama Stablecoins — daily circulating supply of all stablecoins, valued in USD; retrieved Nov 2, 2026
Figure 1. Stablecoin market cap rose from $203.7 billion at the start of 2025 to a peak of $317.1 billion in May 2026, and has stayed near $300 billion since.
Full year 2025 · BCG / Allium analysis
How much stablecoin volume went to actual payments
Low estimateUp to high estimate
| Measure | Amount |
|---|---|
| Gross on-chain transfers | $62T |
| Real economic activity | $4.2T |
| Payments for goods and services | $350–550B |
Source: Boston Consulting Group, “Stablecoin Payments: The Truth Behind the Numbers” (Jan 2026), Allium data
Figure 2. Of the $62 trillion in gross stablecoin transfers in 2025, $4.2 trillion was genuine economic activity, and an estimated $350–550 billion of that paid for goods and services.
Regulation has followed. In the United States, the GENIUS Act, which sets reserve and issuance requirements for payment stablecoins, was signed into law on July 18, 2025, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) finalized its implementing rules on October 21, 2026.4 The European Union has applied MiCA’s rules for e-money tokens and asset-referenced tokens since June 30, 2024.5 Japan brought its amended Payment Services Act into force in June 2023, and within that framework JPYC, a yen stablecoin issued by a registered operator, launched on October 27, 2025.6,7 Hong Kong’s Stablecoins Ordinance took effect on August 1, 2025.8 Stablecoins have become regulated money that moves over the internet.2. One money, countless addresses
The problem is that this money does not sit in one place. Counted by chain, stablecoin supply has balances on 172 chains.9 Ethereum holds 47.3% and Tron 31.8%, and the rest is spread across many chains, including Solana (5.1%), BNB Smart Chain (4.6%), Base (1.75%), Arbitrum (1.22%) and Polygon (0.97%). Even the dollar alone exists as tokens with different issuers and structures, such as USDT, USDC, DAI, USDS, USDe and USD1. Euro, yen and rupiah stablecoins add to the mix.Stablecoin supply by chain · Nov 2, 2026
Top 10 of 172 chains by stablecoin supply, plus Kaia
Supported by TiOther chains
| Rank | Chain | Supply | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ethereum | $140.4B | 47.3% |
| 2 | Tron | $94.3B | 31.8% |
| 3 | Solana | $15.1B | 5.1% |
| 4 | BNB Smart Chain | $13.6B | 4.6% |
| 5 | Hyperliquid L1 | $6.7B | 2.3% |
| 6 | Base | $5.2B | 1.75% |
| 7 | Arbitrum | $3.6B | 1.22% |
| 8 | Polygon | $2.9B | 0.97% |
| 9 | X Layer | $1.4B | 0.46% |
| 10 | Plasma | $1.3B | 0.43% |
| 25 | Kaia | $205.3M | 0.07% |
Source: DefiLlama Stablecoins by chain — circulating supply per chain, valued in USD; retrieved Nov 2, 2026. Shares are of the 172-chain total
Figure 3. Stablecoins are spread across 172 chains, and five of the six chains Ti supports rank in the top ten by supply.
Share by token · Nov 2, 2026
What makes up $299.5B of stablecoin supply
| Token | Supply | Share |
|---|---|---|
| USDT | $179.0B | 59.8% |
| USDC | $71.4B | 23.8% |
| 422 other tokens | $49.1B | 16.4% |
Source: DefiLlama Stablecoins, Nov 2, 2026 — supply × price per token over total market cap; count = tokens with supply
Figure 4. USDT and USDC hold 83.6% of stablecoin supply, and the remaining 16.4% is split across 422 other tokens, including USDS, DAI, USDe and USD1.
The same $1,000 opens different services depending on whether it is held as USDC on Base or as USDT on Arbitrum One. Moving from one to the other means going through a liquidity pool within a chain, or a bridge between chains. The six chains and ten stablecoins that Ti supports alone yield 28 (chain, token) combinations that actually exist, and 756 swap directions between them. Of those, 636 are cross-chain directions. Each direction, in turn, has several pools and bridge routes it can take.3. The first screen of finance is changing
The first screen people turn to for information is moving from the search box to a conversation with AI. The payments industry is already preparing for the next step. Mastercard announced Agent Pay on April 29, 2025, and Visa announced Intelligent Commerce the following day.10,11 In May 2025, Coinbase released x402, which uses the HTTP 402 status code to send and receive stablecoin payments, and in September 2025 Google introduced the AP2 protocol, which authorizes an AI agent’s payments through a “mandate” signed by the user.12,13 The same month, Stripe and OpenAI announced the Agentic Commerce Protocol, which completes payment inside ChatGPT.14AI agent payments · 2025
Agent-payment standards launched within five months
AnnouncedMonth only
| Date | Company | Name |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-04-29 | Mastercard | Agent Pay |
| 2025-04-30 | Visa | Intelligent Commerce |
| 2025-05 | Coinbase | x402 |
| 2025-09-17 | AP2 | |
| 2025-09-30 | Stripe · OpenAI | Agentic Commerce Protocol |
| 2026-09-09 | TRM Labs | x402: 0.6–7.5% agent-driven |
Source: announcements by Mastercard (Apr 29, 2025), Visa (Apr 30, 2025), Coinbase (May 2025), Google Cloud (Sep 17, 2025) and Stripe (Sep 30, 2025); TRM Labs (Sep 9, 2026)
Figure 5. Payments and tech companies released agent-payment standards one after another between April and September 2025, yet TRM Labs’ September 2026 analysis found genuine agents behind only 0.6–7.5% of filtered x402 volume.
Yet the money AI agents actually move is still small. The blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs analyzed x402 payments and estimated that, of the $25.6 million left after filtering out self-payments and bulk transfers, only 0.6% to 7.5% came from genuine agents.15 The technology is ready, but people are not yet entrusting it with their money. That hesitation has reasons. OWASP, a leading reference in the security industry, ranks prompt injection as the first risk for large language model applications, and giving an agent excessive authority as the sixth.16 Research has also shown that manipulating the memory of a crypto agent can trigger unauthorized transfers.17 What is needed now is not an AI that does more, but an AI that is clear about what it does and what it does not do.