Layman’s Field Guide to Digital Assets: Who Is Using Stablecoins? – Volume 3

Despite stablecoins having a market capitalization in excess of $315 billion, many people in the United States have either never heard of these assets or have never transacted with them. Naturally, this raises the question: who is using stablecoins, and where are these users located? In this post, we will outline several established global cohorts of stablecoin users based on country and use case, as well as highlight emerging use cases which are gaining traction across the market.

Proto-Adopters: High-Frequency Trading

In the early years following the proliferation of cryptocurrency, use cases were largely limited to token speculation. If investors wanted to move capital into dollars between trades, they faced a binary choice: remain invested in crypto or cash out entirely into fiat currency. The former exposed investors to volatility, while the latter was slow and expensive, particularly for traders operating outside USD-based markets. Even at this nascent stage, early proto-stablecoins demonstrated a clear product-market fit for dollars on a blockchain. This insight ultimately catalyzed the development of today’s fiat-backed stablecoins. Fast forward to the present, and nearly all cryptocurrency trading pairs are denominated in stablecoins rather than fiat, due to advantages in liquidity, settlement speed, and underlying financial infrastructure.

While largely irrelevant to the traditional business community at the time, market speculators inadvertently created what has become one of the primary use cases of digital assets: tokenized dollars.

Moving Past Trading: Dollar Demand in Asia

According to a usage report published by TRM Labs, stablecoin activity shows a concentration in Asia. In export-oriented economies such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—all ranking within the top 20 globally for stablecoin usage, product-market fit has emerged for two primary reasons. First, weak or volatile local currencies incentivize both retail and institutional users to hedge currency risk through dollar-backed assets. Second, stablecoins provide a faster and more efficient mechanism for remittances and cross-border corporate payments. TRM Labs reports adoption in this region has grown by more than 80% year over year.

E-Commerce and Remittances in Latin America

Latin America represents another significant early adopter of stablecoins, though usage in the region is more payments-focused than in Asia. In countries such as Brazil, traditional payment infrastructure remains inefficient, with credit card settlement cycles often extending beyond 30 days. These frictions have encouraged both merchants and consumers to adopt stablecoins, which typically offer settlement finality within minutes. Adoption in the region is further driven by factors such as persistent currency instability (Argentina being a prominent example) and substantial remittance inflows from the United States.

As of early 2026, Latin America stands out as a key growth market for retail stablecoin usage, supported by relatively high card penetration and a rapidly expanding e-commerce ecosystem. It is reasonable to expect network effects to have a compounding factor on adoption going forward.

Emerging Global Use Cases

Increasingly, stablecoin adoption is shifting toward the business community. Once a niche tool for crypto traders, stablecoins have evolved into a regulated and credible mechanism for cross-border value transfer. Three business use cases are gaining particular momentum in domestic markets: international treasury management, B2B payments and payroll, and FX optimization.

For U.S. domiciled companies with international suppliers, subsidiaries, or customers, stablecoins are rapidly transitioning from a discretionary tool to a strategic requirement for global competition. Clarity in regulation, and an increasingly robust set of institutional based tools drive adoption.

For questions related to payments, treasury operations, stablecoins, or digital assets, please contact Jake Souleyrette at Soul@stabletxn.com.