Standard Chartered slips its $2 trillion stablecoin call to 2030 as supply sits flat near $309 billion

Standard Chartered has pushed back when it expects the stablecoin market to hit $2 trillion — now 2030, two years later than its earlier 2028 call — because supply growth stalled this year. The bank is keeping the headline number, just moving the date, according to a Wednesday report by Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank's global head of digital assets research, described by The Block.

Stablecoin supply has sat between $300 billion and $320 billion for the past 12 months and stands at roughly $309 billion, Kendrick said. He frames the plateau as cyclical, not structural, pointing to a weak crypto market and to past flat-or-falling stretches that resumed growing once markets recovered — a read that is his interpretation, not an established fact.

Usage is the other half of his argument. Raw on-chain transfer value hit a monthly record of $19 trillion in May and has averaged just under $10 trillion a month this year, up from $4 trillion in 2025, Kendrick said. Average monthly velocity — how often each stablecoin dollar changes hands — has roughly doubled to about 30 times, from 15 in 2025. He splits that by token: USDT's velocity held near seven times, consistent with its use as dollar savings in emerging markets, while USDC's jumped to around 80 times from 45, tracking payments and financial transactions, including what he describes as early payments between AI agents.

Kendrick flagged regulation as the main risk to the forecast. He named the U.S. GENIUS Act, due to take effect in January 2027, and said USDT's emerging-market dominance would be most threatened if global regulators closely follow its lead. He sees developed-market payments as the most contested arena, naming Open USD, infrastructure provider M^0, and A+, a proposed network letting banks issue a shared stablecoin and keep the reserve income, as challengers "at the margin."

Key facts

• $2 trillion market forecast moved to 2030 from 2028 (Kendrick, via The Block).
• Supply ~$309 billion, range $300–320 billion over the past 12 months (same).
• Monthly transfer value: record $19 trillion in May; ~$10 trillion average in 2026, vs $4 trillion in 2025 (same).
• Velocity ~30x in 2026 vs 15x in 2025; USDT ~7x, USDC ~80x (up from 45x) (same).
• GENIUS Act takes effect January 2027 (same).

The real-world read

The $2 trillion figure survives only because the deadline moved — a forecast that misses gets a new date rather than a markdown, which is worth remembering the next time this number is quoted as a milestone. The source here is a bank's own research arm, an interested party selling a growth thesis; the supply/usage divergence (flat dollars, rising velocity) is the data doing the work, while "cyclical not structural" and the AI-agent payments angle are Kendrick's framing, not verified fact. Only one outlet's account of the report was available, and the underlying report itself wasn't published in full here, so the figures trace to Kendrick as relayed by The Block rather than to a primary document.

Opinion, and whose

The $2 trillion-by-2030 target, the cyclical-slowdown read, the velocity interpretation, and the list of challengers (OUSD, M^0, A+) are all Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick. The Block's account is secondary reporting of his report.

Sources

• The Block (Tier 2, secondary) — reported Standard Chartered's revised forecast, supply, volume and velocity figures, and Kendrick's regulatory comments, including direct quotes to The Block. Not sponsored; The Block labels press releases separately. Underlying figures originate with Standard Chartered research, an interested party.

Not financial advice.