Se prevé que las criptomonedas muevan 719 billones de dólares a través de pagos globales con la postura agresiva de Visa y Mastercard
Burns Brief
Durante la mayor parte de los últimos dos años, el debate sobre las monedas estables en los pagos se ha centrado en la pantalla de pago: ¿alguna vez los consumidores tocarán una billetera en lugar de una tarjeta? Los participantes del mercado están sopesando cuidadosamente las implicaciones, y el resultado probablemente dependerá de condiciones macroeconómicas más amplias y del volumen. Esté atento a la reacción del $ETH: un movimiento decisivo por encima o por debajo de niveles clave confirmará la próxima tendencia.
For most of the past two years, debate about stablecoins in payments has focused on the checkout screen: will consumers ever tap a wallet instead of a card? Visa, Stripe, and Mastercard have answered with their capital. Visa now settles in USDC, Stripe bought Bridge, and Mastercard is acquiring BVNK. Each move reflects the same read that stablecoins are becoming the settlement and liquidity layer beneath existing brands, and whoever controls that layer controls the economics of the next payment cycle. Chainalysis put adjusted stablecoin volume at $28 trillion in 2025 and projected it could reach $719 trillion by 2035 on organic growth, with a more aggressive scenario approaching $1.5 quadrillion. Why this matters The key question is whether the largest payments companies can absorb stablecoin settlement into their own systems early enough to retain control of fees, flows, and cross-border money movement as regulation and adoption catch up. The grounding comes from McKinsey and Artemis, which estimate actual stablecoin payments at about $390 billion annually, a figure corroborated by BCG's $350-$550 billion range, excluding non-economic and trading flows. At those levels, stablecoins represent roughly 2.3% of Visa's $17 trillion in payments volume in 2025. Stablecoins can reprice settlement economics at 2.3% penetration because settlement and checkout operate on separate infrastructure. A logarithmic bar chart shows stablecoin payments estimated at $390 billion by McKinsey/Artemis and $350–$550 billion by BCG, compared with Visa's $17 trillion in 2025 payment volume. Many hybrid stablecoin payment flows never appear as on-chain merchant transactions. Crypto card transactions typically execute on traditional card rails, while the blockchain captures only issuer inflows and outflows. A stablecoin settlement layer can expand commercially without ever becoming visible at the point of sale. Three bets on the same stack Visa launched USDC settlement in the US in December 2
Key Takeaways
- For most of the past two years, debate about stablecoins in payments has focused on the checkout screen: will consumers ever tap a wallet instead of a card
- Visa, Stripe, and Mastercard have answered with their capital
- Visa now settles in USDC, Stripe bought Bridge, and Mastercard is acquiring BVNK
- Chainalysis put adjusted stablecoin volume at $28 trillion in 2025 and projected it could reach $719 trillion by 2035 on organic growth, with a more aggressive scenario approaching $1
- 3% of Visa's $17 trillion in payments volume in 2025