Stablecoin transaction volume narrowly surpasses Visa payments, as stablecoin transaction volume rose by over 30%

In the first quarter of 2025, stablecoin transactions narrowly outpaced Visa payments as the former rose by over 30%.

According to the Bitwise Crypto Market Review for Q1 2025, stablecoin transactions processed more than $27.6 trillion in the year, officially exceeding Visa’s total payment volume and edging out Mastercard by 7.7%.

The growth was driven by Tether (USDT), Circle (USDC), and Maker (DAI), with 95% of the volume being settled on the Ethereum network.

These fiat-backed digital currencies have also become a top 15 holder of U.S. Treasuries, reflecting their increased integration into traditional financial markets.

For context, their volumes were almost 10 times less than those of Visa in 2020, and it took nearly five years to close this gap and eventually flip Visa.

Chart showing the difference in transaction volume using data from Visa and Coin Metrics (January 1st, 1989, to December 31st, 2024). Credit: Bitwise

The Bitwise report pointed out that stablecoins have outpaced Visa in volume, a clear indication that TradeFi is getting disrupted. It is also estimated that they will settle roughly $27.6 trillion in total transaction volume in 2024, with most of it running on Ethereum.

Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya confirmed that the average weekly stablecoin transaction volume in Q4 2024 reached $464 billion against $316 billion for Visa. Citigroup projected that the market could hit $3.8 trillion by 2030.

However, experts like Dan Smith (Data Expert at Blockworks Research) and Joe Coll (Advisor at Maven 11 Capital) warned that the stablecoin volume might be inflated or manipulated. They argued that it does not reflect real economic activity and cannot be directly compared with traditional financial systems like Visa.

Coll explained that professional traders could generate hundreds of millions in volume using very little initial capital. Smith agreed with Coll’s view that volume manipulation for these U.S. dollar-backed tokens could be achieved without requiring large capital, casting doubt on the figures cited by Palihapitiya. Rajiv Patel-O’Connor, Principal at Framework Ventures, went a step further, referring to the metric as “useless.”

Last year, Visa’s dashboard also reported that only about 10% of stablecoin transactions were genuine, sharply contrasting with Visa, where each transaction represents a real payment or purchase.

Visa partners with Bridge to offer stablecoin-linked cards in Latin America

In other news, Visa announced that it was partnering with Bridge to offer Visa cards linked to fiat-pegged tokens to its Latin American customers.

According to Zach Abrams, CEO of Bridge, the move will allow consumers to use stablecoins on a broader scale.

“In order for consumers to really use these broadly, they will have to be interoperable with existing tools and services that customers and businesses are accustomed to,” Abrams said.

He added that interoperability “enabled folks to use and take advantage of these programmable digital currencies wherever they were in the world, but remain wholly connected with the financial tools that folks used.”

“We feel like the moment is now to take some of the things that we’ve already been doing on a more experimental, pilot basis and start to expose them to the world as capabilities that we anticipate will really start to become big and meaningful and globally scalable.”

–Jack Forestell, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Visa.

Both companies also announced that the new card programs will be introduced in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Chile. The statement also revealed that the product will become available in Europe, Africa, and Asia in the coming months.