Stablecoin transactions are booming, but why isn't more money flowing into crypto?

<p class="text-align-justify" style="text-align: justify;">Picture this for a second. You and a group of friends are sitting on a table and you are passing around a single $100 bill between each other. You use it to pay someone for a meal, who then uses it to settle a debt with another friend, who then passes it along to someone else - and so forth.</p><p class="text-align-justify" style="text-align: justify;">By the time everyone is done, let's say that same $100 bill changed hands ten times. That means you would have recorded $1,000 worth of transactions. But here's the catch, there is still just only $100 sitting around that table. That is a relatively simple example but it does offer some insight into what is happening with the crypto market right now.</p><p class="text-align-justify" style="text-align: justify;">Earlier this week, Standard Chartered reported that <a href="https://www.theblock.co/news/web3/2026-10-14-standard-chartered-stablecoin-market-report-418578" rel="follow">monthly stablecoin transfers have averaged nearly $10 trillion this year</a>. That figure is more than double the $4 trillion average recorded last year. That sounds pretty great, no? Not quite.</p><p class="text-align-justify" style="text-align: justify;">Even with that whopping figure, the total supply of stablecoins has barely grown at all. Standard Chartered estimates that stablecoin supply has remained between $300 billion and $320 billion over the past twelve months. And that has even prompted the bank to push back its $2 trillion market forecast from 2028 to 2030.</p><p class="text-align-justify" style="text-align: justify;">So the question is, how can transaction volumes be booming when the amount of money in the system isn't?</p><p class="text-align-justify" style="text-align: justify;">That brings us back to the example above. The difference essentially comes down to how much money there is and how often that money changes hands. In financial terms, how frequently money changes hands is called 'velocity'. And Standard Chartered estimates that average monthly stablecoin 'velocity' has doubled from around 15 times last year to roughly 30 times this year.</p><p class="text-align-justify" style="text-align: justify;">For some context, stablecoins such as USDT and USDC are just like ordinary dollars as they can be used repeatedly without creating new money - despite being digital tokens.</p><p class="text-align-justify" style="text-align: justify;">Anyway, what the doubling in 'velocity' might be suggesting is that existing stablecoins are being used more actively rather than just sitting idle in digital wallets. However, there is a catch to that.</p><p class="text-align-justify" style="text-align: justify;">More transactions doesn't necessarily mean that we are seeing more users, more real-world payments, or fresh money entering crypto. Some of that activity could simply be more trading involvement, more automated transfers, or funds moving between wallets.</p><p class="text-align-justify" style="text-align: justify;">As such, it would be too hasty to take booming transaction volumes as proof that stablecoin adoption is suddenly taking off. For that, it would need to come with sustained growth in stablecoin supply alongside more evidence of genuine payments and economic activity.</p><p class="text-align-justify" style="text-align: justify;">And for now, it would seem that we are not quite there yet.</p><p class="text-align-justify" style="text-align: justify;"></p> This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.