Beyond dollarization? Visa and Dune report finds non-USD stablecoins increasingly being used as money

There is mounting evidence that suggests so-called local currency stablecoins are being used as just that: local currency.

According to a new report by Visa and Dune, published on Wednesday, the supply of non-USD stablecoins reached $1.1 billion in February, representing a threefold increase from January 2023. Not only that, aggregated transfer volume surged over 1,600% to $10 billion from $600 million over the same period.

“Unlike USD stablecoins — often deployed into DeFi for yield — local currency stablecoins are primarily held in user wallets, centralized exchanges, and institutional treasuries,” the report, titled “Beyond Dollarization,” reads. “This distribution reflects their role as operational money for cross-border payments, remittances, B2B settlement, and FX management.”

Indeed, adoption has surged, with over 1.2 million addresses holding non-USD stablecoins as of February. Meanwhile, the number of unique sending addresses has grown from around 6,000 in January 2023 to 135,000, signaling increasing active usage. Nearly 50% of supply sits in unidentified — likely a mix of individual and institutional — wallets, while about 25% is held on centralized exchanges, according to the report.

This isn’t to say non-USD stablecoins haven’t penetrated DeFi. An additional 13% is held in issuer treasuries or governance-controlled wallets for liquidity management, incentive payments, and other uses, while 7.5% is deployed in lending protocols and 2% in DEX liquidity pools.

That said, much of the “visible DeFi depth” is dominated by Circle’s EURC (EURC), which accounts for over 90% of non-USD stablecoins transfer volume, leading to a potentially skewed view of the market structure, the authors note.

“Excluding EURC, other stablecoins show consistent weekend slowdowns, a pattern consistent with business payments, payroll cycles, and treasury settlement,” the researchers said. “The rest of the market appears to be used far more as a transactional and settlement layer.”

Euro growth

Euro stablecoins dominate the non-dollar sector, comprising over 80% of market cap and about 85% of the total transfer volume. The Brazilian real (BRL), meanwhile, accounts for about 10% of supply and volume, while the Singapore dollar (SGD) and Japanese yen stablecoins are smaller but accelerating, according to the report.

“Other LatAm currencies (COP, MXN) and markets such as ZAR, CAD, AUD, and CHF show strong growth from small bases but remain concentrated, with fewer than 1,000 monthly senders in most cases,” the report adds.

Euro stablecoins actually represent the fastest-growing segment of the local currencies pie, having jumped to 85% of total transferred value this year, compared to between 50%–70% before 2024. Still, euro stablecoins only account for about 0.3% of the global stablecoin market.

“If Euro stablecoins were to reach even a fraction of the Euro’s international share, that could imply a market cap in the tens of hundreds of billions,” the report reads, noting S&P Global has forecasted euro stablecoin growth to hit between $25 billion and $1,100 billion by the end of the decade.

The total stablecoin market cap currently sits above $310 billion, with USDT accounting for over 60% and USDC about 25%.