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The Bank of Italy has challenged one of the crypto industry’s most widely repeated claims after a real world study found that stablecoin remittances are not consistently cheaper than traditional money transfers. Instead, the biggest costs came from converting money into and out of stablecoins rather than moving funds across a blockchain.
Researchers conducted a mystery shopping exercise involving 200 USDC transfers across 10 payment corridors linking Italy with Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and Japan. Rather than relying on simulations, the central bank executed actual transfers and measured end to end costs and settlement times.
🇮🇹JUST IN: The Bank of Italy tested 200 stablecoin remittances across 10 corridors and found they beat the global average cost in most of them.
The bottleneck was not blockchain fees. It was fiat conversion and local payment rails.
The study says stablecoin advantages would be… pic.twitter.com/6LNntpukKt
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) August 2, 2026
The findings suggest that while stablecoins excel at moving value onchain, the surrounding financial infrastructure remains the industry’s biggest bottleneck.
The study found total transfer costs ranged from just 0.3% to nearly 9% of the value sent depending on the payment corridor and service providers used. Blockchain network fees represented only a tiny fraction of the total cost.
Instead, the largest expenses came from purchasing USDC through exchanges, foreign exchange spreads, withdrawal charges and local banking fees required to convert stablecoins back into fiat currency. These on and off ramps accounted for the overwhelming majority of costs.
Settlement times also varied significantly. Transfers completed in under 20 minutes where domestic instant payment systems such as Brazil’s Pix or Italy’s instant payment infrastructure supported both ends of the transaction. Corridors relying on conventional banking systems took one to two business days despite the blockchain settlement occurring within minutes.
The Bank of Italy did not conclude that stablecoins lack value for cross border payments. Instead, researchers found that performance depended heavily on the destination country and payment infrastructure.
Compared with Wise, USDC based transfers were cheaper in only three of seven directly comparable corridors while costing more in the remaining routes. Against the World Bank’s global average remittance cost of 6.65%, stablecoins were competitive across most corridors but failed to deliver a consistent cost advantage.
Researchers also noted that certain results, particularly involving Argentina, were influenced by differences between official and market exchange rates rather than blockchain efficiency alone.
The findings arrive as governments worldwide introduce stablecoin regulations and major financial institutions accelerate blockchain payment initiatives.
Rather than questioning stablecoins themselves, the report suggests the next wave of efficiency gains may come from reducing reliance on fiat conversion altogether. The authors argue that if consumers could directly spend stablecoins for rent, shopping, salaries or school fees without converting back into local currencies, much of today’s friction would disappear.
That view aligns with recent industry developments. Companies including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, PayPal and MoonPay have expanded stablecoin payment infrastructure over the past year, aiming to let merchants accept digital dollars directly instead of requiring users to cash out first.
For now, the Bank of Italy’s research offers a reality check for both supporters and critics of stablecoins. The blockchain itself is rarely the expensive part of a remittance. The real challenge remains the financial system surrounding it, where exchanges, banking rails and currency conversion continue to determine how much users ultimately pay.
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