Who Really Runs Stablecoin Settlement? A Structural Analysis
The post Who Really Runs Stablecoin Settlement? A Structural Analysis appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
Institutional finance has always needed a settlement layer that moves money between organizations. For decades, that layer was correspondent banking: bank-to-bank, one to three days, closed on weekends. In 2025 alone, stablecoins moved $33 trillion, roughly double Visa’s annual payment volume. JP Morgan settled debt in USDC on Solana. Visa settled $3.5 billion in USDC through US banks. PayPal launched its own stablecoin across 70 markets. The settlement layer has changed. This piece traces how stablecoin infrastructure replaced it, and who built the rails that institutional finance now depends on. $10.5 Trillion in One Month, and Institutions are in the Driving Seat Total stablecoin market cap reached $317.89 billion as of April 2026, up from roughly $125 billion in early 2024. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in mid-2025, created a federal framework for payment stablecoins, unlocking institutional adoption. The growth since has been vertical. DefiLlama Market Cap: DefiLlama Dune Analytics data shows stablecoins transferred $10.5 trillion in January 2026 alone. For context, Visa processed $16.7 trillion in total fiat payment volume across its entire fiscal year 2025. Mastercard processed $10.6 trillion in gross dollar volume over the same period. One month of stablecoin transfers on public blockchains approached what Mastercard’s fiat network moved in an entire year. Transfer Activity: Dune The DefiLlama leaderboard from earlier clearly tells the institutional story. PayPal’s PYUSD ranks #7, with a supply of $3.95 billion. BlackRock’s BUIDL is #8 at $2.96 billion. The Mastercard-partnered USDG is #11 at $1.92 billion. These are not crypto-native tokens. These are stablecoins issued by or connected to the largest names in traditional finance, now ranked alongside USDT and USDC. USDC moved $8.3 trillion of the January total, nearly five times USDT’s $1.7 trillion despite being 2.7 times smaller in supply. USDT dominates holdings. USDC dominates movement. That distinction…
Filed under: News - @ April 13, 2026 1:24 am