This report surveys the state of stablecoins across Asia as of mid-2026, drawing only on primary regulators, multilateral institutions, and reputable industry data. Every figure is cited and dated, and where the underlying data is sample-based or contested it is flagged as such. The aim is a sober baseline for fintech, treasury, and policy readers, not a forecast.

A note on the numbers

Stablecoin statistics vary widely by methodology. The payment-volume figures here come from a study of self-selected fintechs and are explicitly sample-based, not market-wide totals [1][2]. On-chain value-received figures measure all crypto activity, not stablecoin payments specifically [5]. Each metric below carries its scope and its as-of date, and figures that could not be verified against a primary or reputable source have been excluded.

How big is stablecoin payments, and where does it sit in global money flow?

Stablecoins are growing quickly but remain a small share of global payments. McKinsey, building on Artemis Analytics data, estimates true stablecoin payment volume at roughly US$390 billion on an annualized basis (from December 2025 activity). That is more than double 2024, yet still only about 0.02% of global payment volumes [1][14]. The asset class is overwhelmingly US-dollar-denominated: the Bank for International Settlements notes stablecoins promise stable value “overwhelmingly [in] the US dollar,” with over 99% dollar-denominated and the market concentrated in the two largest tokens, USDT and USDC [3].

A bottom-up study by Artemis, Castle Island Ventures, and Dragonfly attributed US$136 billion of stablecoin payments between January 2023 and August 2025 (about a US$122 billion annualized run-rate as of August 2025) across a sample of roughly twenty self-selected fintechs [2]. Within that sample, business-to-business payments were the largest category at a US$76 billion annualized run-rate, ahead of peer-to-peer (US$19B), card-linked (US$18B), prefunding (US$3.6B), and business-to-consumer (US$3.3B) [2]. These are sample figures, not market totals.

Why Asia is the growth engine

Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing region for on-chain activity. Chainalysis found APAC grew 69% year-over-year, from US$1.4 trillion to US$2.36 trillion in value received in the twelve months to June 2025 [5][6]. That figure measures all on-chain crypto value received, not stablecoin payments alone. Adoption is broad-based: in the Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, India ranks first globally, Pakistan third, Vietnam fourth, Indonesia seventh, and the Philippines ninth [7].

What Asia uses stablecoins for

Business payments lead. In the Artemis sample, aggregate B2B stablecoin volume grew from under US$100 million per month at the start of 2023 to over US$6.0 billion per month by mid-2025, with a marked acceleration in the second half of 2024 [2]. USDT is the dominant token across Asian markets in the study (India is the notable exception, where USDC accounts for nearly half of observed volume), and Asia shows the most diverse blockchain-network mix of any region, with Tron leading and Ethereum and BNB Chain widely used [2].

Regional case studies

The Philippines

Remittances are a natural early use case, and the Philippines, ranked ninth globally for crypto adoption [7], is a leading example. The World Bank’s Remittance Prices Worldwide database puts the global average cost of sending remittances at about 6.36%, well above the UN Sustainable Development Goal target of 3% [13]. USDT is the settlement asset most used across Asian corridors [2], and it is increasingly off-ramped into pesos through licensed local platforms. Coins.ph, a regulated Philippine exchange and wallet, supports receiving USDT and withdrawing to Philippine bank accounts and e-wallets via local rails such as InstaPay and PESONet [16], and has partnered with remittance providers to route stablecoin transfers into the country [15]. For overseas-worker remittances, which make up a large share of Philippine inflows, this compresses both cost and settlement time relative to traditional wires. Corridor-specific stablecoin volumes and savings remain limited in the public data and are not asserted here.

Vietnam

Vietnam ranks fourth globally in the Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index and is the third-largest crypto market in Asia-Pacific, with roughly US$220 billion in on-chain value received and 55% year-over-year growth in the twelve months to June 2025, driven by remittances, gaming, and savings [6][7]. USDT is the settlement asset of choice in the country’s retail and peer-to-peer flows [2]. Policy is formalising quickly. Vietnam’s Law on Digital Technology Industry (Law No. 71/2025/QH15), effective 1 January 2026, recognises crypto assets for exchange and investment but not as a means of payment, and excludes fiat-backed stablecoins from the digital-asset definition, leaving them to a separate regime [17]. In a controlled exception, the city of Da Nang approved a licensed pilot, Basal Pay (operated by AlphaTrue Solutions), that converts foreign visitors’ payments to a USDT equivalent while merchants receive Vietnamese dong, under AML/CFT and FATF Travel Rule controls [17][18].

Indonesia

Indonesia ranks seventh globally in the Chainalysis 2025 index, down from third in 2024 (a shift that partly reflects a new institutional-activity sub-index rather than falling retail use) [7]. It is also a large remittance market: inflows rose more than 10% to almost US$14.5 billion in 2023 [19], and the cost of sending US$200 to Indonesia was 5.13% in Q3 2025, among the lower-cost major corridors but still above the 3% SDG target [20]. With USDT the dominant stablecoin in regional flows [2], Indonesia’s mix of remittance demand and high mobile-wallet penetration makes it a natural stablecoin-payout market.

Gulf-to-South-Asia remittances

The Gulf is the most important outbound remittance region for Asia, and the corridor economics explain the pull toward stablecoins. In 2023, India was the top remittance recipient globally at US$120 billion, ahead of the Philippines (US$39B) and Pakistan (US$27B); South Asia received US$186 billion in total [19]. Yet the global average cost of sending US$200 was 6.4% in Q4 2023, more than double the 3% SDG target, with digital transfers (about 5%) cheaper than non-digital (about 7%) [21]; the cost of sending US$200 to India was 5.30% as of Q3 2025 [20]. Against that backdrop the UAE has built a regulated on-ramp: the Central Bank’s Payment Token Services Regulation (effective 6 July 2024) licenses Dirham-denominated tokens for general use and lets foreign tokens such as USDT reach UAE users through a registration route [11]. With USDT the dominant regional settlement asset [2], these corridors are a leading candidate for stablecoin-based remittance, though verified corridor-level USDT volumes are not yet public and are not asserted here.

Hong Kong: the institutional end

Hong Kong is the region’s clearest institutional and regulatory case. Its Stablecoins Ordinance (Cap. 656) took effect on 1 August 2025, making fiat-referenced stablecoin issuance a licensed activity supervised by the HKMA; as of late July 2025 no licence had yet been granted [9]. That changed on 10 April 2026, when the HKMA issued the territory’s first two stablecoin-issuer licences, to Anchorpoint Financial and HSBC, from an initial field of 36 applicants [22][23]. Anchorpoint is a subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) and a joint venture with HKT and Animoca Brands, a grouping that had earlier joined the HKMA’s stablecoin sandbox launched in March 2024 [23][24]. Hong Kong shows the institutional, bank-grade end of the market forming, in contrast to the retail, USDT-led adoption seen elsewhere in the region.

Local currency versus the dollar: the sovereignty question

Despite these frameworks, local-currency stablecoin activity in Asia-Pacific remains marginal. Outside Korean won activity, Chainalysis recorded only about US$9.4 billion in Thai-baht stablecoins, with smaller volumes across Indonesian rupiah, Australian dollar, and Hong Kong dollar, in the twelve months to June 2025 [6]. Credible local-currency options exist: StraitsX, a MAS-licensed major payment institution, issues the Singapore-dollar-pegged XSGD (redeemable 1:1 with the Singapore dollar), alongside USD-pegged XUSD and rupiah-pegged XIDR [12]. Still, the dollar dominates.

That dominance frames the central policy debate. The BIS argues stablecoins fall short as sound money, failing the tests of singleness, elasticity, and integrity, and warns that their predominantly-dollar form, if left unregulated, could undermine monetary sovereignty and trigger capital flight, particularly in emerging-market economies, leaving stablecoins in its view only a subsidiary role in a well-regulated system [3][4]. The BIS also notes stablecoins’ growing use as a cross-border payment instrument for residents in emerging markets lacking access to the dollar [3]. For Asia’s policymakers this is the crux: capture the efficiency of dollar stablecoins, or build local-currency alternatives to preserve monetary control.

Outlook for 2026 and beyond

Three trends are clear from the cited evidence. First, the regulatory perimeter is hardening: licensed, fiat-referenced regimes are now live in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and the UAE, shifting the question from whether to operate to under which licence [8][9][10][11]. Second, B2B and cross-border payments, not consumer speculation, are the demand drivers in the region’s data [2]. Third, the dollar’s dominance and the sovereignty concerns the BIS raises will keep the local-currency-versus-dollar tension at the centre of Asian policy [3][4]. What remains poorly measured, and worth watching, is reliable market-wide data on Asian institutional adoption and corridor-level stablecoin volumes, which today’s sources do not yet provide consistently.

References

1. McKinsey & Company, “Stablecoins in payments: what the raw transaction numbers miss.” mckinsey.com
2. Artemis, Castle Island Ventures & Dragonfly, “Stablecoin Payments From the Ground Up” (2025). reports.artemisanalytics.com
3. Bank for International Settlements, Annual Economic Report 2025, Chapter III. bis.org
4. Bank for International Settlements, press release, 24 June 2025. bis.org
5. Chainalysis, 2025 Geography of Crypto Report. chainalysis.com
6. Chainalysis, “Asia-Pacific Crypto Adoption 2025.” chainalysis.com
7. Chainalysis, 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index. chainalysis.com
8. Monetary Authority of Singapore, “MAS Finalises Stablecoin Regulatory Framework,” 15 August 2023. mas.gov.sg
9. Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Stablecoin issuers (Stablecoins Ordinance, Cap. 656). hkma.gov.hk
10. Financial Services Agency of Japan, discussion paper on stablecoins, 10 April 2025. fsa.go.jp
11. Central Bank of the UAE, Payment Token Services Regulation. centralbank.ae
12. StraitsX, “XSGD.” straitsx.com
13. World Bank, Remittance Prices Worldwide. remittanceprices.worldbank.org
14. CoinGeek, “Stablecoin payment volume rises to $390 billion (report).” coingeek.com
15. Fintech News Philippines, “Coins.ph and BCRemit partner on stablecoin remittance.” fintechnews.ph
16. Coins.ph Help Center, “How to Receive USDT on your Coins.ph Wallet.” support.coins.ph
17. PwC Vietnam, “Vietnam: cryptocurrencies” (2025). pwc.com/vn
18. GlobeNewswire, “Basal Pay: Vietnam’s first licensed pilot for digital asset conversion,” 26 August 2025. financialcontent.com
19. World Bank / KNOMAD, Migration and Development Brief 40, June 2024. documents.worldbank.org
20. World Bank, Remittance Prices Worldwide, Issue 54 (Q3 2025). remittanceprices.worldbank.org
21. World Bank, “Remittances slowed in 2023, expected to grow faster in 2024,” 26 June 2024. worldbank.org
22. Hong Kong Monetary Authority, press release on first stablecoin issuer licences, 10 April 2026. hkma.gov.hk
23. Standard Chartered, “Anchorpoint granted stablecoin issuer licence by the HKMA,” 10 April 2026. sc.com
24. HKMA / Government of Hong Kong, stablecoin issuer sandbox participants, 18 July 2024. info.gov.hk

Published by Stables, an API-first, USDT-native stablecoin infrastructure platform focused on Asia. This report is provided for information only and is not financial, legal, or investment advice. Figures are current as of the dates cited.