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- Standard Chartered says the stablecoin market could reach $2 trillion by 2028 even as turnover speeds up sharply.
- The bank says stablecoin velocity has doubled in two years, with much of the shift driven by USDC use in traditional finance and AI-linked payments.
Standard Chartered is sticking with its big stablecoin call, but with a complication that makes the forecast a little more interesting. Tokens are moving faster now.
The bank said the stablecoin market can still grow to $2 trillion by 2028, even though velocity, essentially how often tokens change hands, has roughly doubled over the past two years.
That change matters because higher turnover means the same supply can support more activity, which in theory reduces the need for fresh issuance. Even so, the bank has not backed away from its broader market-size target.
USDC is doing more of the heavy lifting
A notable part of the shift appears to be happening around USDC. Standard Chartered said the rise in velocity has been driven by new use cases tied to traditional finance and AI payments, pushing the token further beyond its old role as mostly trading collateral or a parking spot between crypto positions.
That is a meaningful change in market structure. Stablecoins are still central to exchange liquidity and DeFi plumbing, of course, but the newer demand looks more transactional.
Payments, settlement flows and machine-driven transfers are starting to account for more of the movement. When that happens, turnover rises naturally because the token is being used as a rail, not just stored.
Bigger market, faster circulation
There is a mild tension in the forecast. If each stablecoin dollar works harder, market cap does not need to grow as quickly to support larger volumes. But Standard Chartered’s view seems to be that adoption is widening fast enough for both things to be true at once. Stablecoins can circulate more efficiently and still end up much larger in absolute size.
In other words, the bank is not just forecasting more stablecoins. It is forecasting a market where those dollars move through more parts of finance, more often, and for reasons that look increasingly familiar to the non-crypto world.
