- Stablecoin real world payment volume reached an annualized $72 billion in February, according to Artemis.
- Business-to-business (B2B) payments made up half of the $6 billion in “real world” stablecoin payments for February 2025.
- Tether represented up to 90% of real world stablecoin payments, far above its share of stablecoin market capitalization.
- The Tron blockchain dominated cross-border stablecoin payments, especially for transfers into emerging markets.
- Blockchain selection depends mainly on the destination country, not just the sender’s location.
Artemis released a report on stablecoin payments, based on a survey of 31 companies that handle mainstream stablecoin transactions. In February, these companies moved stablecoins at an annualized rate of $72 billion in real world payments, separate from crypto trading activity.
The survey found that half of the $6 billion real world payments in February 2025 came from B2B transactions. This marks a 288% year-over-year increase from $772 million. The average B2B payment size on the Ethereum and TRON blockchains was about $219,000. On the Polygon blockchain, average payments were less than $10,000.
Tether made up the majority of these payments, accounting for 90% in January and 86% in February. This is significantly higher than its 71% market capitalization compared to USDC. As stated in the report, Tether has a higher velocity of payments, with “the volume of payments [in the past 24 hours] representing 26.6% of its market capitalization vs. USDC’s 10.8%.” The report notes that this is true for both crypto and real world transactions.
The TRON blockchain processed the most real world stablecoin payments, not only in emerging markets like Africa, Asia, and Latin America, but also in transactions sent from the United States and Europe. The report credits this trend to the payment’s final destination. For example, payments from Singapore to China mostly use TRON because China prefers it, even though Singapore mainly uses Ethereum.
Initially, TRON attracted users due to its low costs and ability to handle large transaction volumes. However, costs have increased, with TRON now charging several dollars per payment while other major blockchains charge only cents. Some companies lower their fees by staking TRON tokens to gain access to “energy,” the blockchain’s version of transaction credits.
Ethereum was the second most used blockchain for real world payments. It led payment flows in Nigeria, and was also dominant in other African countries like Uganda, South Africa, and Kenya, as well as in Peru and Argentina in Latin America. In Brazil, however, TRON had a much larger share of payment activity.
The report, produced with input from Castle Island Ventures and Dragonfly, highlights how real world stablecoin payment trends differ from expectations, with Tether and TRON taking leading roles. It also shows that blockchain choice often depends on the requirements and preferences of the payment’s destination country, not only the country of origin.
For more data and findings, read the full stablecoin payments report from Artemis at Stablecoin FYI.
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