Standard Chartered Pushes Its $2 Trillion Stablecoin Call to 2030

Standard Chartered has moved its $2 trillion stablecoin market forecast from 2028 to 2030. The reason is that the market has not moved much at all. Supply has sat between $300 billion and $320 billion for the past 12 months and stands at roughly $309 billion, according to Geoff Kendrick, the bank's head of digital assets research.

The target itself did not change. Standard Chartered's own report, published on its site, expected the market to reach $2 trillion by the end of 2028. That date has now slipped two years. Getting from $309 billion to $2 trillion needs about 6.5 times growth, and the bank has given that growth more time to arrive.

Kendrick calls the long stall cyclical rather than structural, tied to weak crypto prices rather than a breakdown in demand, and notes that past slowdowns gave way to growth once markets recovered. That is the case for keeping the number at all. The rest of the note is about where it could go wrong.

The Coins Got Busier While Supply Stood Still

Supply measures one thing. Use measures another, and use is not flat. Monthly on-chain transfer value hit $19 trillion in May 2026, and this year's monthly average is just under $10 trillion, up from $4 trillion in 2025.

Velocity says the same thing more simply. Each dollar changed hands about 30 times a month this year, roughly double the 15 times recorded in 2025. USDC's velocity rose to about 80 times a month from 45. USDT held steady near seven, which fits how it is used, as savings rather than spending money.

Circle's own results show the supply side wobbling. USDC in circulation was $77.0 billion at the end of Q1 2026 and $73.3 billion at the end of Q2 2026.

Two Brands, Two Habits

The bank splits the market into four parts, and the split is clearer than the single label suggests. USDT dominates savings in emerging markets, where it works like a dollar bank account. USDC leads payments and banking-style transactions in developed markets. USDC and Ethena's USDe hold the crypto trading rails. USDC also leads AI-to-AI payments, a small corner that runs mainly on Base and Solana.

Two habits, then: one coin people hold, another coin businesses move. That also explains where the bank sees room. Developed-market transactions are the one segment where the biggest players have not built a large distribution network, which leaves it the most open to challengers despite USDC's early lead.

Reserve Income Is the Number to Watch

Issuers earn their money from the reserves behind their coins, so flat supply makes for flat income. Circle's Q2 2026 results show how the two can pull apart. Reserve income was $668 million, up 5% from a year earlier, on 25% growth in average USDC in circulation, partly offset by a 66 basis point fall in its reserve return rate. Total revenue and reserve income came to $701 million, up 7%. In Q1, reserve income was $653 million, up 17%, with the same 66 basis point offset.

Tether grew slightly and stayed profitable. It reported about $184.6 billion in USD₮ tokens issued at the end of Q2 2026, around $446 million more than at the end of Q1, and net operating profit of about $1.50 billion for the quarter, led by US Treasury and repo holdings. Its BDO attestation put total assets at $187,751,426,411 against $183,641,897,215 in liabilities, leaving a $4.11 billion cushion.

On DefiLlama's stablecoin tracker, USDT is at $183.851 billion, down 0.20% over seven days and up 0.30% over 30 days. USDC is at $72.769 billion, down 1.43% over seven days and 2.21% over 30 days. Among the challengers the bank names, Global Dollar (USDG) is at $3.01 billion, down 7.60% over the last 30 days. Tether's separate US token, USAT, sits at $183.11 million, and Ripple's RLUSD is at $2.415 billion.

What Has to Happen Before 2030

Regulation is the biggest risk the note flags, and the open question is whether other countries follow the US lead. The GENIUS Act, which sets US rules for stablecoins, takes effect in January 2027. The bank expects corporate transactional use in developed markets to rise sharply in 2027, bringing new institutions into issuance and redemption.

Standard Chartered also works inside this market. It launched integrated access to USDC minting and redemption, letting institutional clients convert between fiat and USDC through a single bank-led onboarding step. That sits alongside the crypto custody work it has been building for institutions, most recently for Ripple's USD stablecoin in Singapore.

Circle's next set of results and the January 2027 start date are the two moments that will show whether the new timeline is too cautious or too hopeful.