Source: Cailian
Financial Associated Press, October 26 (Editor Xia Junxiong)Since the United States first passed the regulatory bill on stablecoins in July this year, the speed at which consumers and businesses use stablecoins for real-world payments and transactions is rapidly increasing.
According to a report by blockchain data provider Artemis, the total value of goods, services and transfers through stablecoins in August exceeded $10 billion, up about 70% from $6 billion in February, more than twice as much as last August.
This increase follows President Trump's signing of the Genius Act into law on July 18. The bill establishes a federal regulatory framework for stablecoin issuers and requires them to support tokens with highly liquid assets such as treasury bills.
A stablecoin is a special type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, usually pegged 1: 1 to the U.S. dollar and backed by a physical asset such as U.S. Treasury bonds or gold.
Although the growth rate of stablecoin payments is staggering, it is still small compared to traditional payment systems. Even at an annualized growth rate of $122 billion, stablecoin payments account for only a small fraction of the total traditional payments. However, this still gives stablecoin supporters confidence in its future development prospects.
Andrew Van Aken, a data scientist at Artemis, said: "If you look at the growth trend of stablecoin supply, you will see that the growth curve has gone up significantly after the passage of the Genius Act. We do think this regulation has had a positive impact."
The report pointed out that inter-enterprise transfers accounted for the bulk of stablecoin payments, reaching a monthly size of $6.4 billion, accounting for about two-thirds of the total, an increase of 113% since February. This is the first time that corporate payments have surpassed personal peer-to-peer transactions, which have remained at about $1.6 billion per month.
The main reason businesses adopt stablecoins is to circumvent delays in the international banking system. Van Aken explained: "Enterprises have had enough of this cumbersome process-first remitting deposits to one bank, then transferring them to another bank through that bank, and so on."
He added that the average amount of corporate stable currency payments is about $250,000, and the speed of payment is especially important in such large transactions, while stable currency can help bypass the problem of transfer delays in multi-layer agency banks in the traditional system.
In fact, the banking industry has also begun to notice this trend. Payment service Zelle, operated jointly by several banks, plans to expand its international business. Its parent company issued a statement on Friday saying that Zelle will make cross-border cash flows through stable coins.
Van Aken pointed out that in addition to accelerating the transfer of funds, users of stable coins can also get a certain profit, which brings additional advantages to stable coins and may further promote its popularity.
"As stablecoins prove their worth as better currencies, people's trust will accelerate, driving their continued growth," Van Aken said.
According to a forecast released by Goldman Sachs in August this year, the potential total market size of stablecoins could reach trillions of dollars.