Two years. That is how far Standard Chartered has moved its target for a $2 trillion stablecoin market, from 2028 to 2030, in a report published on 14 October.
Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s head of digital assets research, blames stalled supply. It has stayed between $300 billion and $320 billion for the past 12 months and now stands at about $309 billion.
He reads the stall as cyclical, a product of weak crypto trading rather than a weaker product. Past flat periods, he notes, were followed by renewed growth once markets recovered.
Usage is a different story. Monthly transfer volume has averaged nearly $10 trillion this year, against $4 trillion in 2025.
Velocity, meaning how often each dollar of supply changes hands, has roughly doubled from about 15 to about 30. USDC’s has risen to around 80, while Tether’s USDT has stayed near seven.
Kendrick sees the market splitting in four, with Tether’s USDT dominant in emerging-market savings and Circle’s USDC leading developed-market payments. The bank expects the sharpest competition in developed-market payments.
The main risk he names is regulation, not demand, in particular whether other countries adopt rules like the American GENIUS Act, which takes effect in January 2027.
The forecast keeps its size and moves its date. It now depends on a crypto recovery the bank cannot schedule, and the 2028 target it set in October 2025 has already been missed, so the new date carries the same risk by the supply it was supposed to count.
