Stablecoins moved $1.79 trillion in a single month

A new volume record arrives in the middle of a crypto bear market

Caio Barbosa

Founder & CO-CEO

Forbes Under 30. One of the leading voices in Fintech & Crypto in Brazil. Writes weekly about stablecoins, payments, and the future of financial infrastructure in Latin America.

Cover image for Lumx blog article: Stablecoins moved $1.79 trillion in a single month

Stable News is Lumx's weekly curation dedicated to tracking the major moves in stablecoins, digital infrastructure, and the future of global payments.

If the last edition showed that the map of money and the map of capital still don't align, this week brought the numbers that show where real usage is heading. Stablecoin volume hit a new record, companies accelerated adoption in international payments, and a group of financial giants joined forces to launch their own digital currency. In parallel, the regulatory ruler advanced from Taiwan to Europe.

Stablecoin volume sets record of $1.79 trillion in June, says Visa

In brief:

Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume reached $1.79 trillion in June, up 63% from May, according to Visa
USDC accounted for roughly 67% of the total ($1.21T); USDT took 32% ($576B)
The record came in the middle of a crypto bear market, with Base and Ethereum leading among networks

Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume reached $1.79 trillion in June, up 63% from $1.1 trillion in May, according to Visa's analytics dashboard powered by Allium. The figure surpassed the previous record of $1.78 trillion set in February and represents a 125% year-over-year increase. Circle's USDC accounted for roughly 67% of volume at $1.21 trillion for the month, while Tether's USDT took approximately 32%. Among networks, Base (Coinbase's L2 on Ethereum) led with $565 billion, followed closely by Ethereum itself and Tron.

The detail that gives the figure its weight is the methodology. Visa developed, together with Artemis, Allium Labs, and Castle Island Ventures, an adjusted calculation that filters out "distracting metrics" such as high-frequency bots, exchange treasury rebalancing, and repeated smart contract transactions. It is an attempt to arrive at what would be organic activity, rather than raw volume inflated by automation. When compared to the gross figures that have circulated in recent months, the trillions-per-year range that exceeds Visa and Mastercard combined, the adjusted reading is more conservative and, for that very reason, more useful for understanding real usage.

The market reading is that the record came despite the crypto bear market, reinforcing the thesis of stablecoins as value-transfer infrastructure that is independent of asset prices. Nick Ruck, director at LVRG Research, told Cointelegraph that the surge "underscores the growing role of stablecoins as essential infrastructure" that persists even in the absence of speculative activity.

Cybrid: 42% of companies already use stablecoins for international payments

In brief:

42% of surveyed companies already use stablecoins in cross-border payments; 88% intend to use them within 12 months
Average savings of 35% on international payment costs, rising to 47% for those moving more than $100M/month
Regulatory clarity is the top factor for expanding use, cited by 71% of respondents

Payments infrastructure firm Cybrid released a report showing that 42% of surveyed companies already use stablecoins in cross-border payments, and 88% say they are likely to do so within the next 12 months. Only 2% identified as exclusively committed to traditional rails. Companies reported average savings of 35% on international payment costs, a figure that rises to 47% among those processing more than $100 million per month. The survey gathered input from 468 executives and business leaders in the US, Canada, and the UK between late April and early May.

As covered in edition #134 with Paybis's data, enterprise payments have consolidated as the dominant stablecoin use case, and the Cybrid report reinforces the same direction from a different angle. The most cited use cases were payroll and contractor payments, followed by supplier payments, customer payments, yield generation, and treasury management. The report itself cites McKinsey's estimate that B2B transactions accounted for roughly 60% of the $390 billion in global stablecoin payments in 2025. The picture that emerges is of a tool that has moved out of speculative retail and into corporate cash flow.

The most relevant data point for infrastructure operators is the bottleneck companies identify. Regulatory clarity was cited by 71% as the most important factor for expanding use, ahead of reliable infrastructure or integration with existing systems. It is confirmation that at this stage, the barrier has stopped being technological and become one of institutional trust. Where the regulatory ruler becomes clear, adoption unlocks, and that is precisely why the legislative moves covered below, from Taiwan to Europe, matter so much for the pace of growth.

More than 140 companies join forces for a stablecoin that returns reserve yield to holders

In brief:

The Open Standard launched Open USD (OUSD), backed by more than 140 companies including Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, Stripe, and Ripple
Companies will be able to issue OUSD at no cost and retain the yield from the token's reserves
Circle's stock fell more than 16% on the day; OUSD is expected to launch this year and targets USDT and USDC

More than 140 companies signed on to a dollar-backed stablecoin project that allows participants to "receive all the yield" from reserves. In a statement, the Open Standard announced the launch of Open USD (OUSD), backed by financial firms such as Visa and Mastercard and crypto houses including Coinbase, Ripple, OKX, and Bybit. The project will allow businesses to issue OUSD "at no cost and without artificial volume limits," while retaining the yield generated by the token's reserves. The launch is expected before the end of 2026.

The point that changes the conversation is the economic design. In the two largest stablecoins on the market, the reserve yield, the interest earned on the securities backing the token, stays with the issuer. OUSD's proposal is to return that revenue to whoever holds and distributes the currency, directly attacking the profit model of USDT and USDC. It is no coincidence that Circle's stock fell more than 16% on the day of the announcement, closing at $63.63. Will Harborne, CEO of Rhino.fi, captured the ambiguity of the move by saying that OUSD "is the first launch with a real chance of taking share from USDT and USDC, because reserve revenue goes back to everyone holding it", while acknowledging that this same incentive is what "creates fragmentation at scale."

As tracked since edition #132, with Coinbase/Flipcash's USDF and Western Union's USDPT, the competitive layer had already been shifting from issuance to distribution. OUSD takes that a step further and moves the contest to reserve economics. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire responded that the company welcomes "continued innovation and competition in the space" and that it will soon expand support for dollar and other-currency stablecoins. With the total market at around $312 billion and Citi projections reaching $4 trillion by 2030, the fight over who captures reserve yield is set to be one of the central axes of the coming years.

Taiwan passes broad crypto law with stablecoin rules

In brief:

The Legislative Yuan approved the Virtual Asset Service Act on June 30 in a third reading; it now goes to the president for signature
All virtual asset service providers will need an FSC license; stablecoin issuers will need central bank approval and full trust-held reserves
Operating without a license can carry up to 7 years in prison and fines of up to NT$100 million (~$3.1 million)

Taiwan approved one of Asia's most comprehensive crypto laws, moving from light-touch registration to full financial supervision of the sector. The Legislative Yuan passed the Virtual Asset Service Act on June 30 in a third reading, and the text now goes to President Lai Ching-te, who is expected to promulgate it within ten days. The law takes crypto companies out of the regime that required only anti-money-laundering procedures and places them under broad oversight by the Financial Supervisory Commission, covering everything from internal controls and cybersecurity to asset listing processes and the segregation of client funds.

Stablecoin issuers face a higher bar. Issuing a stablecoin in the country will now require both central bank consent and FSC authorization, and issuers will have to maintain full reserves held in trust, with regular audits and public disclosure. Penalties are severe: operating a platform without a license or issuing stablecoins without authorization can lead to up to seven years in prison and fines of up to NT$100 million, roughly $3.1 million, while fraud or market manipulation can carry up to ten years.

With this move, Taiwan joins the group of jurisdictions that have pulled crypto out of the regulatory margins and brought it into licensed finance. As mapped in the Asia-focused editions, Japan in #132 and #133, South Korea in #131, the Asian axis continues building regulated rails at an accelerating pace. For issuers and fintechs operating across multiple jurisdictions, each new law of this kind has the same dual effect: it raises compliance costs while increasing the predictability that companies say they need in order to adopt.

Euro stablecoins under MiCA grow 128%, but still represent just 0.22% of the dollar market

In brief:

The combined market cap of eight MiCA-compliant euro stablecoins rose 128% in a year to $673.9 million, according to Decta
They still represent just 0.22% of the dollar stablecoin market, which stands at around $300 billion
The data arrives days before the end of the MiCA transition period for service providers (CASPs) on July 1

The market cap of MiCA-compliant euro stablecoins grew 128% in the year leading up to the end of the regulation's transition period, according to payments infrastructure firm Decta. The combined market cap of eight tokens rose to $673.9 million as of June 28, 2026, up from $295.6 million a year earlier, while trading volume advanced 43%. The growth is consistent, but starts from a small base: the group represents just 0.22% of the dollar stablecoin market, which hovers around $300 billion.

The report feeds a debate closely followed in edition #132. On one side, a Blockchain for Europe study argued that MiCA has made euro stablecoins safer but commercially weaker, due to reserve requirements and the prohibition on paying interest. On the other, a Bruegel think tank paper called for looser liquidity rules and even ECB funding access for issuers to compete with dollarized tokens. The European Central Bank pushed back, warning that expanding euro stablecoin issuance could weaken bank credit and complicate monetary policy.

The tension is the same one that structures the "uneven map" from the previous edition. Europe accounts for a significant share of global stablecoin usage, but nearly all the supply is in dollars, and the rules that make the tokenized euro safe are also the ones keeping it small. The Decta numbers show that the market exists and is growing under MiCA; the open question is whether it can reach scale without Europe reopening the discussion about its own framework. With the transition window closing on July 1, that conversation is likely to heat up in the second half of the year.

Worth Reading

For anyone tracking how brands appear, or don't, in AI responses, this piece dismantles a trendy metric.

Ann Smarty, writing for Practical Ecommerce, argues that the "AI visibility scores" sold by tools like Profound and Peec AI are of limited use. The problem is that the score depends entirely on the prompts chosen and is easily gamed: simply including the brand name in the prompt can push the score to 100% and inflate the average. She proposes looking at more honest signals — which domains are actually cited across multiple platforms, which competitor pages appear, and the different ways a brand gets mentioned.

The parallel with what is observed in this edition is direct. The entire stablecoin volume discussion runs into the same wall: Visa's adjusted methodology exists precisely to separate organic activity from bot noise, just as a good AI metric needs to measure what users actually type, not the manufactured prompt. In finance or in search, the discipline is the same: be skeptical of the clean number that measures the wrong thing.

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Story of the Week

Google published its own manual for eliminating "AI slop" at scale, and the trigger is not the AI itself.

Agency NoGood broke down a Google research paper describing a system, nicknamed S-CTS, for detecting low-quality synthetic content at industrial scale, already in operation on a major video platform. The conceptual shift is what stands out. For two decades, moderation evaluated the individual artifact — the page, the video, and the entire SEO game was to optimize that artifact to pass the test. The new system evaluates the behavior behind the content: the coordination, the publishing speed, the template repetition, and the shared fingerprint of a network of accounts. When an entire cluster appears pushing the same mass-generated material, Google takes down the whole cluster at once.

The most revealing detail is what NoGood calls the "slop ceiling." Even with more than half of new web articles now being generated primarily by AI, only about 14% of top Google results and somewhere around 18% of citations in assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity come from synthetic content. Supply is enormous, reward is small, and the difference is the retrieval mechanism already discriminating against mass-produced content. The system is calibrated to preserve the individual creator who uses AI as a tool, and to target only coordinated operations.

The lesson crosses domains. The ecosystem is building programmable money and increasingly invisible infrastructure, and the temptation to chase volume for its own sake is real at every layer. What the Google paper ultimately suggests is that mass coordination has stopped being an advantage and become a warning signal, while original contribution is what survives. It is the same ruler that separates bot volume from real stablecoin usage: substance weighs more than movement.

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