With more than $230 billion in circulation and trillions in monthly transaction volume as of April 2025, stablecoins are transforming how money moves across the internet, driving real-world adoption and unlocking a wide range of stablecoin use cases. These include cross-border payments, decentralized finance (DeFi), payroll, real-world spending, and more. By combining the stability of fiat currencies with the efficiency of blockchain technology, stablecoins are being adopted across industries as a faster, more accessible way to exchange value around the world. Stablecoin users range from everyday people to freelance workers to enterprise platforms like Visa and Shopify.
With stablecoins now moving trillions of dollars each month and facilitating more daily transaction volume than Visa and Mastercard combined, it’s worth taking a closer look at how these assets are being used.
To that end, this article will look at where stablecoin adoption is growing — and why. We’ll show where adoption is happening today, and see how stablecoins are helping make global finance more open and accessible.
Direct peer-to-peer transfers
Stablecoins offer a simple, borderless way to send money directly between people, without needing banks, wire services, or third-party approvals. This makes sending money to friends, colleagues, or community members as easy as sending a text message, whether you're splitting a dinner bill, tipping a creator, or reimbursing someone instantly.
Unlike traditional payment apps, which often depend on local banking infrastructure or charge transfer fees, stablecoins like USDC are globally interoperable, fast, and offer self-custody ownership. And because they run on public blockchains, stablecoins like USDC can be transferred globally in seconds, often at a fraction of the cost of traditional services.
These peer-to-peer (P2P) payments are especially powerful in regions where financial services are fragmented or overly dependent on cash. For example, in the Philippines and parts of Southeast Asia, apps like Coins.ph provide users with a simple, mobile-based way to transact without needing a bank card or checking account. And beyond emerging markets, companies like Circle leverage a network of global partners to let users transfer stablecoins without relying on banks or traditional payment networks.
Remittances and cross-border payments
Traditional payment networks have made it relatively easy to transfer money within their own gated ecosystems, but cross-border transactions are a different matter. In 2023, an estimated $669 billion in remittances flowed to low- and middle-income countries, yet the average global fee for sending money abroad remained high at 6.62%, according to World Bank data. Stablecoins dramatically reduce these costs while settling nearly instantly, making them a compelling alternative to traditional money transfer services.
In Latin America, for instance, Bitso processes millions in remittances each month by using USDC on low-cost blockchains like Stellar and Polygon. Elsewhere, platforms like Conduit and Juiceway have enabled stablecoin payments for everything from import-export businesses to sending money home. These examples aren’t theoretical — they’re happening now. Stablecoins like USDC are helping bridge financial access gaps in regions where conventional infrastructure is too expensive or inadequate.
E-commerce and merchant settlement
For online merchants and global sellers, stablecoins unlock faster settlement, lower fees, and access to buyers in parts of the world where traditional payment options fall short. For many businesses, adopting fiat-backed stablecoins like USDC is the best way for sellers to bypass card networks and other intermediaries and receive funds almost instantly. For end users and customers, this may result in lower prices over time as businesses are able to reduce their operational costs.
The operational efficiencies and cost-saving benefits of stablecoins have caught the attention of many legacy financial institutions, with major players like Visa integrating stablecoins into their payments infrastructure. E-commerce giants like Shopify and WooCommerce now also enable merchants to accept stablecoins via crypto payment plugins, and Circle’s APIs allow developers to integrate USDC payments natively into their platforms, helping merchants reduce fees, eliminate chargebacks, and streamline global commerce. For independent creators and small businesses, chargebacks can be a real setback. Stablecoins offer peace of mind by making transactions final and secure.
Stablecoins for payroll
Stablecoins aren’t just good for payments, they also help businesses manage money faster and more easily. Global companies face significant inefficiencies when handling payroll and treasury operations across multiple jurisdictions, especially with overseas contractors. Traditional treasury operations require businesses to pre-fund accounts in various countries to avoid delays in payroll and invoice settlements, often tying up billions in working capital. These funds could otherwise be used for growth, hiring, or inventory. On top of that, currency fluctuations and foreign exchange (FX) fees eat into profit margins.
Stablecoins streamline payroll and treasury operations by enabling real-time, cross-border transactions without the need for expensive pre-funding or slow bank wires. Companies can pay employees and contractors, settle invoices, and optimize cash flow instantly, using stablecoin-based digital dollars like USDC that move at internet speed. If you’re an employee or a contractor, receiving your paycheck in stablecoins may result in lower fees and more funds ultimately in your pocket.
Platforms like Remote and Rise now enable the use of international stablecoins for payroll, and regulated banks have started to leverage their credibility and experience in securing regulated deposits to launch their own stablecoins. Even the US Federal Reserve has acknowledged the potential benefits of stablecoins, highlighting their ability to reduce transaction costs and settlement times.
Global dollar access
With nothing more than a smartphone and internet access, users can save in digital dollars — no bank required. In Argentina, apps like Buenbit and Lemon make it easy for everyday users to swap pesos for USDC and help protect their savings. For families saving for rent, education, or groceries, that access to stability matters.
Hedging against market volatility
Stablecoins that are redeemable on a 1:1 basis for USD, unlike other cryptocurrencies, serve as practical tools for hedging against volatility in digital assets markets, offering investors a secure way to manage and mitigate exposure to price fluctuations. By converting assets into stablecoins like USDC during periods of significant market uncertainty or downturns, investors can help safeguard their holdings without exiting the crypto ecosystem entirely. This provides flexibility to quickly reinvest or move funds across different platforms or assets once market conditions stabilize, thus maintaining liquidity and agility in investment strategies.
DeFi activities
Beyond traditional payment solutions, stablecoins are also the backbone of DeFi. By anchoring today’s volatile, fast-moving digital asset ecosystem to a stable unit of account, stablecoins like USDC unlock decentralized financial opportunities that are accessible to most anyone with an internet connection. These innovations are often referred to as DeFi stablecoin use cases, as stablecoins like USDC power trading and other financial services across decentralized finance.
In terms of cryptocurrency trading, stablecoins are the primary source of liquidity across the growing array of decentralized exchanges and perpetual futures platforms. Stablecoins play a crucial role in facilitating trading on automated market maker (AMM) platforms like Uniswap. Stablecoins are also useful as collateral and as a settlement currency on derivatives platforms like dYdX. And as tokenized government bonds, real estate, and commodities come onchain, stablecoins like USDC can serve as a settlement layer, bridging old and new financial systems.
New business models powered by stablecoins
Stablecoins aren’t just improving how money moves, they’re changing how people and businesses make money in the first place. By enabling real-time payments that are globally accessible, stablecoins are unlocking new business models that were either impossible or impractical in a traditional financial setting. Let’s consider some examples of how stablecoins are powering new programmable money use cases — from real-time subscriptions to instant global royalties.
Think of subscription-based platforms and SaaS tools. With smart contract infrastructure like Superfluid, businesses can stream stablecoin payments continuously, enabling real-time compensation that flows like data — not days after the work’s done. Stablecoins also enable independent creators to monetize their work without platforms taking a cut with companies like Audius, a decentralized music application, launching automated artist payouts in USDC.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Ultimately, forward-looking businesses will find increasingly creative ways to integrate stablecoins to improve their financial operations.
Stablecoins are designed to be used
From global remittances and institutional finance to DeFi and e-commerce, stablecoins are proving that value can be programmable, borderless, and instantaneous. Their rapid adoption among institutions and individuals worldwide underscores the versatility and reliability of stablecoins and their benefits are increasingly too big to ignore.
These real-world stablecoin use cases demonstrate that digital dollars like USDC are not just for trading — they’re powering real utility, business innovation, and financial access.
To explore how USDC is powering the next generation of digital finance, visit usdc.com/learn.
