Visa is settling stablecoin transactions at a $4.5 billion annualized rate

Visa is now clearing stablecoin payments at a yearly rate of $4.5 billion, as demand picks up from companies offering crypto-linked cards. It’s still a tiny slice of the $14.2 trillion in payments Visa processed in 2025, but it’s growing month after month, according to Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto.

Sheffield told Reuters that Visa sees a real shot at staying ahead by helping stablecoins plug into the payment world we already use. “Even if you’re building something new with stablecoins, you still have to connect it back to the current system if you want people to actually use it,” he said. Right now, that system is still Visa’s turf.

Visa tests USDC settlements while stablecoins keep growing

Visa is already running programs tied to stablecoins, including cards that let users spend crypto. In December, it rolled out a pilot in the U.S. where some banks are allowed to settle transactions with Visa using USDC, the stablecoin created by Circle.

Still, Sheffield made it clear that things aren’t there yet when it comes to actually spending stablecoins at stores.“There’s no merchant acceptance at scale,” he said. That means people might hold USDT or USDC, but they can’t just walk into a store and use it. So, companies making stablecoin cards? They need a Visa to close that gap.

“They need Visa’s products and services more than ever to be able to actually get real customers using them,” he added.

USDT, issued by Tether out of El Salvador, has the largest circulation, about $187 billion worth. But even with numbers like that, people can’t use those coins at most shops. This is where Visa comes in.

Banks move into stablecoins, while traders drive most volume

Some of the world’s biggest banks are watching this very closely. Last year, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Citi said they were looking at making their own stablecoins.

This came after growing talk that stablecoins could weaken how much control commercial banks have over global payments. In Europe, banks like ING and UniCredit went further. They teamed up to create a new company that’s building a euro-backed stablecoin, trying to reduce U.S. grip in digital payments.

Sheffield said he was “excited” about that. “I think the stablecoin story shouldn’t just be about dollars,” he said.

But while all this is happening, a big chunk of the stablecoin world is being driven by traders. A Visa-Allium Labs data tracker shows there’s now over $270 billion worth of stablecoins in circulation, more than double the $120 billion from two years ago.

But out of the $47 trillion in stablecoin transactions logged on blockchain, only $10.4 trillion was counted as real activity by Visa’s site.

Sheffield explained that the rest was cut out because it came from bots and high-frequency traders flipping coins across exchanges or doing other non-payment stuff. “We revised it down to remove volumes from high-frequency traders… and non-payment activity,” he said.