Stablecoin Transactions
Stablecoin transactions over public blockchains are exchanges of stable-value cryptocurrencies that can be openly recorded, verified, and accessible to anyone on a blockchain network.
At A Glance
Separating signal from the noise
There is a lot of noise in stablecoin data given that blockchains are general purpose networks where stablecoins can be used across a range of use cases with transactions that can be initiated manually by an end user or programmatically through bots. Some of these onchain transactions don't resemble settlement in the traditional sense.
In this light, Visa wants to show how stablecoins are being utilized, clearly and plainly, adjusting for inorganic activity from bots and other artificially inflationary practices.
Transactions by Weekday vs. Weekend
Stablecoins facilitate near-continuous payment settlements, designed to operate 24/7, 365 days a year. Our analysis, based on the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), reveals a significant trend: weekend transaction volumes are substantial, averaging billions of dollars per day. Remarkably, the average volume per weekend day significantly exceeds the typical weekday volumes, underscoring the growing reliance on stablecoins for round-the-clock financial activities.
Overall Transaction Metrics
Stablecoin Cumulative Metrics
Stablecoin | Blockchains | USD Volume | Total Transactions |
---|---|---|---|
USDT | tron | $2.4T | 556.9M |
USDC | ethereum | $927.4B | 13.4M |
USDT | ethereum | $798.2B | 38.5M |
USDT | bsc | $263.2B | 271.3M |
USDC | solana | $129.0B | 69.5M |
USDC | arbitrum | $120.6B | 36.2M |
USDT | arbitrum | $52.6B | 24.2M |
USDC | base | $42.9B | 19.7M |
USDT | solana | $42.5B | 19.6M |
USDC | polygon | $40.3B | 31.0M |
Adjusted Transaction Methodology
The methodology consists of two main components: Adjusted and Unadjusted.
The adjusted criteria aim to remove potential distortions that can arise from certain activity, such as high-frequency trading and bots. Allium Labs has sourced over 3 million labeled addresses, which are probabilistic determinations of the entities and thematic categories behind commonly used addresses.
For example, we have included labels from organic categories such as lending, investment funds, minting & burning, on and offramps, decentralized exchanges and centralized exchange activities.
For unlabeled addresses, the dashboard utilizes heuristic based filters, including the single directional volume filter and a 30-day transaction volume and count threshold seen below. While not exhaustive, these filters are meant to make best-guess approaches while Visa continues to improve our labeling coverage.
The unadjusted criteria include either labeled activities, such as bots and intra-exchange volume, as well as unlabeled addresses that exceed the thresholds of the filter above or are derived from internal smart contract transactions.
Single directional volume filter: only the largest stablecoin amount transferred within a single transaction is counted. This removes the redundant internal transactions of a complex smart contract interaction.
Adjusted address filter: only categories including centralized exchanges, decentralized exchanges, Lending, Mint/Burn, etc. and addresses, and their associated transactions, are included if the address has not sent more than 1,000 transactions or $10m in transfer volume in a given 30-day period. This removes high-frequency and high-volume trading wallets, high-frequency and high-volume smart contract addresses, bot related activity.
Adjusted Categories:
Centralized Exchange: Deposits and withdrawals of stablecoins to and from labeled exchange accounts. Example: Sending USDC to Coinbase (deposit) or moving USDT from Binance to a personal wallet (withdrawal).
Decentralized Exchange: Volume from labeled decentralized exchange addresses. Examples: Uniswap (swapping USDC for Ethereum), Curve (trading between USDT and USDC), and dYdX (leveraged trading with USDC).
Other Categorized: other labeled categories that represent organic stablecoin activity, such as lending, investment funds, minting & burning, ramps, and others.
Other (Adjusted): Volume from addresses that are unlabeled and have done less than 1,000 transactions and $10m in transaction volume over any 30-day rolling period.
Unadjusted Categories:
Internal Transactions: Internal smart contract transactions that we exclude with the unidirectional volume filter.
Intra-Exchange: Centralized exchanges rebalancing wallets or sending value to and from their own wallets. (centralized exchange address to centralized exchange address)
Bots: Volume or transaction counts generated from labeled MEV bots.
Other (Unadjusted): Unlabeled addresses that exceed our threshold of 1,000 monthly transactions or $10m monthly volume. Meant to exclude unlabeled bots and high frequency traders not captured by current labeling.
Filters and methodology utilized for this dashboard were agreed on collaboratively by Visa, Artemis, Allium, and Castle Island Ventures.