Standard Chartered Bank Delays $2 Trillion Stablecoin Market Cap Prediction to 2030

Deep Tide TechFlow reports that on October 14, according to The Block, Standard Chartered Bank has postponed its prediction for the stablecoin market to reach a $2 trillion valuation from 2028 to 2030. Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank's Global Head of Digital Assets Research, stated that stablecoin supply has consistently hovered between $300 billion and $320 billion over the past 12 months, currently standing at approximately $309 billion. The stagnation in growth is considered a cyclical rather than structural issue. Despite the slowdown in supply growth, usage continues to rise—monthly on-chain transfer volumes are projected to reach nearly $10 trillion by 2026, a significant increase from $4 trillion in 2025. In May alone, monthly on-chain transfer volumes hit a record high of $19 trillion. The velocity of stablecoin circulation has also doubled from 15x in 2025 to approximately 30x. Among them, USDC's circulation velocity increased from 45x to 80x, primarily driven by payments and transactions between AI agents; USDT's circulation velocity remains around 7x, mainly serving emerging markets' demand for dollar savings. Kendrick noted that competition is most intense in developed markets within the payment and traditional financial replacement sectors, with potential challengers including OUSD, stablecoin infrastructure provider M^0, and the multi-bank shared stablecoin network A+. On the regulatory front, the U.S. GENIUS Act is expected to take effect in January 2027, and its global implementation impact will be a key risk factor influencing the realization of these predictions.