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Points of Focus
- In June 2026, the adjusted volume of stablecoins reached $1.79 trillion, with a market capitalization of about $300 billion.
- In August 2026, Mastercard concluded its BVNK acquisition, and Visa released an RFP for a replacement settlement partner.
- Dunamu joined forces with Visa, X investigated stablecoin creator rewards, and SWIFT enabled a shared ledger with 17 banks.
Stablecoins are no longer at the periphery of crypto markets. According to DefiLlama tracking, the total circulating supply is estimated to be between $301.5 billion and $311 billion as of Aug. 31, 2026, with Tether’s USDt (USDT) between $183 billion and $184 billion and USDC (USDC) near $74 billion.
Adjusted transaction volume, as measured by Visa’s Allium-powered dashboard and excluding bots, wash trades, and internal transfers, hit a record $1.79 trillion in June alone, up 63% from May and 125% from June 2025. The adjusted volume for the first half of 2026 has already reached $8.82 trillion, on course to exceed previous full-year numbers.
These transactions transfer dollars through regulated rails on a large scale. The question is no longer whether stablecoins clear more value than traditional networks in some metrics, but rather where the next units of capital will enter and how settlement infrastructure will absorb them.
The institutional cascade
The shift is measurable in infrastructural decisions. In a short period of time, Mastercard completed its $1.8-billion acquisition of BVNK, and Visa expanded stablecoin settlement to nine blockchains and began looking for a new partner.
What’s more, SWIFT launched live pilots of its shared ledger with 17 banks, while X explored stablecoin payouts for creators. Dunamu and Visa also announced a partnership to explore Open USD and AI-linked services, and US state banking groups formalized the BankChain Alliance, which covers thousands of institutions.
JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Santander & over a dozen major banks move forward with plans to launch a crypto stablecoin.
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) August 26, 2026
Where does additional money truly enter?
Supply growth has slowed. According to Stablecoin Beat data, the market dropped by about 2% during the 90 days to late August after peaking at almost $320 billion earlier in 2026. Net flows still show occasional inflows. Stablecoin Beat reported a nearly $6-billion aggregate 30-day net market-cap shift in recent windows, with USDC adding more than $1.7 billion in a single tracked week.
Additionally, according to Token Terminal data on asset mints, USDC is one of the highest-volume minting assets during trailing periods, with tens of billions in 30-day mint activity across chains. USDT mint figures remain sizable but smaller in comparison to the bigger circulating base.
Velocity offers a clearer story. According to Visa data cited by Forbes, USDC handled about 70% of adjusted volume in the first half of 2026 despite having a lower supply base than USDT, resulting in higher turnover. Organic volume annualizing in the $9 trillion-$17 trillion range, depending on methodology, according to Visa-adjusted figures and Artemis data, is still less than raw onchain totals that surpassed $30 trillion in 2025.
Card spending provides a tangible onramp: Global stablecoin-linked card volume surpassed $1 billion for the first time in July 2026, with cumulative statistics topping $10 billion, with Visa handling the vast majority of programs. These flows turn onchain funds into regular merchant acceptance without requiring merchants to own cryptocurrency.
The main entry and exit points are still minting and redemption activities. Issuers react to demand from business-to-business corridors, exchanges, payment companies, and treasuries. The same dollars are turning over more quickly when adjusted settlement increases but supply remains relatively constant. That’s exactly the trend seen in the middle of 2026.
Mastercard owns the rail; Visa searches for one
Five months ahead of schedule, on Aug. 3, 2026, Mastercard completed its acquisition of BVNK. BVNK has more than 25 licenses, including Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) authorization, and handles almost $30 billion in annual stablecoin payment volume across more than 130 markets. On the fiat side, the platform connects stablecoins to SWIFT, SEPA, ACH, and Fedwire, as well as key blockchains. Instead of collaborating with that orchestration layer, Mastercard now controls it.
Visa’s previous agreement with BVNK for settlement and Visa Direct payouts created an immediate gap. On Aug. 18, Visa launched a request for proposal for a new settlement and over-the-counter partner licensed in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Singapore that can accept multiple stablecoins, including Open USD.
By April 2026, Visa’s own stablecoin settlement platform, which serves around 130-160 stablecoin-linked card programs, had already attained a $7-billion annualized run rate over nine blockchains, rising 50% quarter-on-quarter. The two networks are using different strategies: open partner selection versus vertical ownership.
🚨 Visa is looking for a new stablecoin partner.
Following Mastercard’s acquisition of BVNK, Visa has issued an RFP to find a new settlement/OTC partner with crypto licensing capabilities in the US, Canada, UK and Singapore.
The new partner will:
-Support multiple stablecoins… pic.twitter.com/g7s5wZCXKC— ABG (@_abgweb3_) August 18, 2026
SWIFT’s 24/7 ledger and the bank response
In July 2026, SWIFT announced that its blockchain-based shared ledger was ready for deployment. Tokenized deposits are being used in live transactions by 17 banks on six continents, including Citi, HSBC, UBS, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered, Wells Fargo, BNY, DBS, and MUFG.
The ledger serves as an orchestration layer. Before final settlement takes place via current systems, banks move tokenized deposits continuously, including on weekends and overnight. In August, HSBC and Standard Chartered performed an early-live interbank transaction. The concept eliminates traditional cut-off times while maintaining compliance, credit, and risk controls.
Initiatives from parallel banks are also emerging. The BankChain Alliance was announced on August 25-26 by 39 state banking organizations representing 3,283 banks with assets totaling $21.8 trillion. The industry-owned network plans to offer tokenized deposits, stablecoins, automated settlement, and smart payments in 2027.
It is still in the process of selecting technology partners and is intended to interoperate with existing systems. Larger banks are investigating public-chain stablecoin issuance under the GENIUS Act framework and also developing tokenized-deposit networks through The Clearing House.
X, Dunamu, and the next distribution layer
Under its new Original Content Rewards program, which will replace revenue sharing on Sept. 8, 2026, X is looking into stablecoin rewards, such as USDC, for creators. SpaceX has already established operational precedent by using stablecoins for specific Starlink collections. There has been no confirmation of token selection or launch date as of Sept. 1.
On Aug. 28, Dunamu (the operator of Upbit) and Visa announced a collaboration to explore stablecoin-based payments, cross-border remittances, and AI-driven financial services. The companies will discuss the potential application of Open USD (OUSD), an open-standard stablecoin endorsed by a consortium that includes Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, and over 140 institutions. The work is still exploratory and is being staged in accordance with Korean and other regulatory restrictions.
Dunamu and Visa Partner to Explore Stablecoin Payments and AI-Driven Financial Services
Dunamu, the operator of South Korea’s largest crypto exchange Upbit, has entered a strategic partnership with Visa to explore stablecoin payments, global remittances, and AI-driven financial… pic.twitter.com/hYYT7NNV9y
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 28, 2026
What the numbers still hide
Raw and adjusted volume numbers still combine economic and non-economic activities even after Visa filters them. According to McKinsey and Artemis data, the real-world proportion was originally estimated to be around 1% of 2025 volume, with estimates of fully identifiable real-world payments continuing to be a small portion of total movement.
Despite its quick growth, card spending is still a rounding error when compared to the multitrillion-dollar traditional volumes from Visa and Mastercard. The mid-2026 market-cap drop further demonstrates that demand is not growing consistently. That means that, instead of staying in idle stablecoin balances, capital can rotate into tokenized funds or other yield-bearing assets.
Regulatory friction and the path ahead
How quickly and how far these rails can scale is still being dictated by regulatory fragmentation. The proposed OCC frameworks and US regulations under the GENIUS Act are continuously developing in preparation for their 2027 implementation dates. The European MiCA license is available for some issuers, although it is not universal.
Depending on capital treatment, deposit insurance, and interoperability standards, public stablecoins and bank-led tokenized deposits may coexist or compete. In the event that governance or reserve models diverge, Open USD and similar consortium coins add a layer of coordination risk.
Simply put, the August 2026 cluster of institutional and corporate actions makes the plumbing visible at scale. Whether adjusted volumes continue to accelerate or stabilize will be determined by how efficiently those rails transform onchain dollars into finality while avoiding the correspondent-bank frictions they were supposed to reduce.
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