Crypto Payments Jump 45% as Visa, Mastercard and Stripe Embrace Stablecoins
Stablecoin supply stalls, but payments jump 45% as Visa, Mastercard and Stripe connect crypto to cash
Stablecoin supply has barely moved in 2026, but the tokens already in circulation are being used more actively for payments, according to data from blockchain analytics firm Allium.
Allium found that stablecoin payments reached $482 billion in the first nine months of 2026, a 45% increase from the same period a year earlier. The trend suggests that stablecoins are shifting from primarily being a trading and on-chain liquidity tool to a more frequent payment instrument.
The broader context points to a payments industry that is increasingly willing to treat stablecoins as settlement infrastructure. Multiple industry analyses cited by OpenFX’s 2026 cross-border report said stablecoin transaction volume reached $27.6 trillion in 2024, exceeding the combined throughput of Visa and Mastercard, while market capitalization moved above $300 billion.
Business usage has also accelerated. The same cross-border report noted that B2B stablecoin payments grew from under $100 million per month in early 2023 to over $6 billion by mid-2025, a roughly 60x rise in 30 months.
Major payment networks have begun to build around that demand. Visa’s stablecoin settlement program is running at a $4.5 billion annualized rate as of January 2026, indicating that stablecoin settlement is becoming part of mainstream payment workflows rather than a pilot concept.
Momentum has been reinforced by steps from traditional payment giants to connect stablecoins to familiar merchant and banking rails. Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard have been reported to be working toward a joint stablecoin platform, a sign that established rivals see stablecoins less as a competitive threat and more as a shared settlement layer that can reduce friction in moving money.
Separately, the Open Standard initiative has launched a dollar stablecoin called Open USD (OUSD), positioning it for enterprise use across banking, settlement, and cross-border transactions. Initial deployment is being anchored by Visa, Stripe, Coinbase, and Mastercard-owned BVNK, with Shopify committing to mint roughly $1 billion in total token supply to support early liquidity.
Stripe’s own stablecoin acceptance product illustrates how the “crypto-to-cash” bridge is being productized for merchants. Stripe integrates stablecoin acceptance directly into its standard Payments API, charging a 1.5% flat fee and paying out in USD by default through the same rails merchants already use for card payments. Coinbase Commerce, by comparison, operates as a standalone checkout product with a 1% fee and typically settles in crypto unless merchants opt into an autoswap-to-fiat add-on.
Industry adoption is also unfolding alongside supportive policy attention in the U.S., where federal policymakers have been examining frameworks aimed at promoting dollar-backed digital assets internationally. The overall picture from payments data and recent product launches is that stablecoins are increasingly being treated as programmable, faster settlement rails—while the biggest payment companies work to make those rails usable within existing business systems.
