Hard to believe that only a few years ago stablecoins weren’t on anyone’s radar. Of course, here at Moneybrain we were early adopters, having our own stablecoins as early as 2018, but in principle they didn’t exist long before that time, and if they did, they were almost certainly used as a curiosity rather than a real tangible alternative.
Stablecoins offer clear advantages over traditional fiat SWIFT transactions, which is why the juggernaut J.P. Morgan created their own in effect through JPM Coin (now often called JPMD as a deposit token), a permissioned blockchain system (later rolled into Kinexys, their digital asset service, for licensing their proprietary technology).
This technology mirrors stablecoins, but stablecoins are freely available whilst JPMD remains bank-specific and aimed at institutional clients.
As of early January 2026, Kinexys announced a phased rollout to issue JPMD natively on the privacy-focused Canton Network (in collaboration with Digital Asset), following its earlier launch on Base, blending bank-backed security with broader blockchain access for near-instant, 24/7 settlements.
The era of stablecoins is upon us. Although Europe may push onwards in their pursuit of central digital banking currencies (such as the potential digital euro, where the ECB completed its preparation phase in October 2025 and is now advancing technical readiness with legislation, the sheer might of the U.S. dollar will likely dictate that the world largely takes an open approach and adopts stablecoins over centrally controlled central bank digital currencies.
That’s why it’s all the more remarkable that analysts today predict stablecoins may account for 5–10% of global (or specifically cross-border) payments by 2030, backed by the EY-Parthenon survey (where most financial institutions expect that range, equating to $2.1–4.2 trillion in value) — reaching an estimated $2 trillion market capitalisation (with some forecasts going higher: Keyrock/Bitso eyeing around 12% of cross-border flows and $1 trillion in annual volumes, while Citi projects a base case of $1.9 trillion cap and a bull case up to $4 trillion).
Currently, the total stablecoin market cap sits at around $310 billion as of mid-January 2026 (per DefiLlama data, with USDT dominance around 60%, up nicely from roughly $205 billion at the start of 2025 amid strong post-GENIUS Act growth).
The allure is clear to see: its 24/7 availability, cheaper fees, and truly borderless payment utility make it a clear winner, especially when dealing with multinational payments.