Stablecoin payments jump 45% to $482B while supply barely moves

Stablecoin payments reached $482 billion in the first nine months of 2026, up 45% from a year earlier, while the total value of stablecoins in circulation barely moved, according to a report from analytics firm Allium.

Circulating supply stood at about $305 billion at the end of September, up 0.4% since the start of the year, CoinDesk reported. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies pegged to a traditional asset, usually the U.S. dollar. The number of payments grew faster than dollar volume, rising 71% to more than 1 billion transactions as the average payment fell from $544 to $462, according to the report.

September set a monthly record at $72 billion in stablecoin payments, and the third quarter grew 51% from a year earlier, Crypto Briefing reported. Allium listed business transactions, payroll and cross-border payments as major use cases, and said payments made by AI agents doubled to 68.3 million transactions in the third quarter.

The report's headline figure comes from a filtered pool. Of $97.9 trillion in raw stablecoin transfers through September, Allium classified $2.4 trillion, or 2.5%, as end-user activity after removing exchange, decentralized finance and automated transactions, CoinDesk reported.

Card networks add stablecoin rails

Three announcements in the week before the report showed payment firms folding stablecoins into existing systems.

Mastercard introduced its Global Money Platform with BVNK, the stablecoin infrastructure firm it acquired in August. The service combines traditional currency accounts, stablecoin balances, conversions, card spending and bank payouts through one connection, and lets banks and fintechs offer accounts holding both fiat currencies and stablecoins. Payments firms Nuvei and Marqeta are among the first customers.

Stripe is working with Plasma, a blockchain-based financial services firm, on cards that support balances in dollars, euros, Brazilian reais, Mexican pesos and Colombian pesos alongside eligible stablecoins, CoinDesk reported. The companies plan to let customers spend from the balance that matches the purchase, and Stripe's expanded card infrastructure covers more than 30 countries, with plans to reach more than 100 by next year.

Visa said Inyo Global, a payment orchestration firm for fintechs, money transmitters and banks, became the first provider to put Visa Direct's stablecoin prefunding service into commercial use. Payment firms can use Circle's USDC to fund cross-border payouts in nearly real time instead of waiting for banking windows, while recipients can still receive money through conventional channels.

Visa has launched more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs worldwide, with payment volume on those programs up nearly 200% year over year, Crypto Briefing reported. The company's annualized run rate for stablecoin settlements has passed $20 billion.

Card spending funded by stablecoins grew roughly tenfold to $3.9 billion in the third quarter, Allium found. Purchases under $50 accounted for 84% of the increase in card transactions, CoinDesk reported, though the report estimated that second-quarter card spending was just 0.03% of Visa's $4 trillion in payment volume.

Tether, Circle and Ethena, three of the largest issuers, all saw their supply contract in 2026, while smaller issuers added a net $6.9 billion in supply and kept the overall total roughly level, Crypto Briefing reported.

Nuvei chief executive Phil Fayer said stablecoins are becoming part of how businesses move money across borders and currencies. "The future of global commerce depends on money moving as freely as the businesses and consumers it serves, across borders, currencies and increasingly, between traditional and digital forms of money," he said.

Patrick Mollard, co-founder and chief executive of Paris-based business payments firm Fipto, said companies want stablecoins integrated into their existing operations rather than run as a separate system. "Businesses don't want separate crypto infrastructure sitting alongside their existing financial operations," he said in a note shared with CoinDesk. "They want to move between fiat and stablecoins within the same payments and treasury environment."