Stablecoins depend on banking infrastructure to scale, report finds

Decrypt reported that genuine stablecoin payments reached about $390 billion annualized in late 2025, representing roughly 0.02% of a $208 trillion cross-border market. The outlet argued that enterprise payment flows begin and end in fiat currency, leaving stablecoins to handle only the middle leg of transactions that once relied on correspondent banking. Decrypt highlighted that single-bank dependency poses an operational risk, citing precedents such as Silvergate, Signature, and FDIC pause letters. The report noted that companies scaling institutional volume, including Stripe's $1.1 billion acquisition of Bridge, Citi's crypto custody launch, and Standard Chartered's stablecoin settlement tests in Singapore, are building architectures that rely on traditional banking.