Allium estimates that stablecoin payments reached $482 billion during the first nine months of 2026, up 45.4% from the same period a year earlier, but the figure represents a model-based classification of blockchain transfers rather than a verified record of merchant sales or settled invoices.
The estimate comes from a much larger pool of onchain activity. Allium recorded $97.9 trillion in raw stablecoin transfers between January and September, then removed $59.3 trillion classified as infrastructure activity and $36.2 trillion tied to trading venues. After further adjustments, it arrived at an addressable base of roughly $2.4 trillion, of which payments made up about one-fifth.
That filtering process places the $482 billion number well below 0.5% of raw onchain transfer volume. It also means the reported growth should be read as evidence of rising activity under Allium’s wallet-labeling and behavioral rules, rather than a direct measure of documented commercial settlement.
Payment classifications rely on wallet behavior
Allium’s payment labels assign transfers to categories such as consumer-to-consumer, business-to-business, procurement, and business operations. The framework uses known wallet identities and transaction patterns, rather than invoices, point-of-sale receipts, or bank-style payment records.
The report categorized $173 billion as consumer-to-consumer transfers, the largest individual segment. Business-to-business activity accounted for $134 billion, consumer-to-business transfers totaled $112 billion, and business-to-consumer transfers reached $63 billion.
Adding the three categories involving at least one business produces $309 billion, or about 64% of Allium’s payment estimate. A narrower measure based on wallets identified as business recipients puts business-to-business plus consumer-to-business activity at $246 billion, around 51% of the total.
Those labels offer a useful view of where stablecoins may be used, but they do not establish that every transaction represented invoiced trade, payroll, merchant checkout, or another conventional payment. Allium’s purpose classifications similarly identified $116 billion of business operations, $111.8 billion of procurement, $29.3 billion of disbursements, $172.5 billion of peer-to-peer transfers, and $52.3 billion without a purpose tag.
The uncertainty is especially relevant because Allium has not published an amount-weighted error study that would quantify likely false positives and false negatives across the $482 billion series.
A Bank for International Settlements working paper offers a reminder of the difficulty in interpreting blockchain transfers. The BIS examined 141 million Ethereum transactions and 593 million stablecoin transfer events involving three dollar stablecoins in 2025. Nearly 60% of those events occurred inside complex transactions containing multiple actions, making a transfer event an imperfect proxy for a standalone payment.
Method changes complicate comparisons
Comparisons with earlier estimates face another complication after Visa updated the classification approach behind its onchain stablecoin dashboard on Sept. 18. Visa’s dashboard uses Allium inputs.
The update expanded the address-labeling universe from roughly 15 million addresses to 600 million and added routing heuristics designed to identify intermediary activity. Broader labeling can improve coverage, but it can also shift historical comparisons when previously unidentified transfers are sorted into different categories.
USDT accounted for $406 billion, or 84.2%, of Allium’s classified payment volume in the first nine months of the year. That share was substantially higher than USDT’s portion of reported stablecoin supply, indicating that the token is being used disproportionately in the report’s payment categories.
Tron handled about two-thirds of both Allium’s adjusted stablecoin transfer value and classified payment value. Ethereum remained the largest network for native stablecoin supply, while Solana and BNB Chain captured larger positions under some transaction-count measures.
Allium’s fee comparison showed transfer costs below one cent on seven of eight networks reviewed in September. Ethereum recorded $0.1352 per transfer under the report’s methodology. Those network fees are only one component of a payment system’s cost: the comparison excluded foreign-exchange spreads, compliance expenses, prefunding, fraud losses, failed transactions, banking costs, and customer support. Tron was excluded because its resource-based fee design was not directly comparable.
Stablecoin supply remains concentrated
Total stablecoin supply stood at $304.9 billion at the end of September, only 0.4% above its level in December, according to Allium. The small aggregate increase masks changes beneath the surface.
Allium attributed $184 billion of supply to Tether and $74.2 billion to Circle. Together, the two issuers represented 84.7% of the reported total. Tether’s balance fell by $3.1 billion during the first nine months of 2026, while Circle’s declined by about $864 million. The number of issuers with more than $1 billion in circulation rose from 11 to 15.
Allium excluded some brand-wrapped structures from its headline supply figure. Its report listed $766.7 million in excluded supply in one issuer section and $872 million in a branded-token section.
Circle’s second-quarter disclosures show how stablecoin economics extend beyond reserve income. The company reported $701.3 million in total revenue, including $667.7 million from reserves, and $412.5 million in distribution, transaction, and other costs. About $324.6 million of those costs was tied to Coinbase. The arrangement demonstrates how reserve income can be shared with distribution partners while the underlying reserves remain held by the issuer.
Tether reported about $1.5 billion in net operating profit for the second quarter and a $4.11 billion reserve buffer in materials attested by BDO. In August, Tether said KPMG had issued an unqualified opinion on Tether International’s 2025 financial statements. That opinion and quarterly reserve attestations cover different reporting exercises.
Cards and newer chains add smaller signals
Allium estimated $3.9 billion in stablecoin-linked card spending in the first nine months of 2026, roughly ten times its estimate for the same period in 2025. Only 19% of that amount came from purchase-level observations; most relied on settlement data, which can reflect netting and does not necessarily correspond one-for-one with purchases.
For projects covering 36% of the card-spending total, Allium observed 23.8 million purchases. Transactions under $50 made up 83% of the count but only 17% of value. Purchases worth at least $1,000 represented 0.7% of transactions and 39% of value.
New chains were also accumulating stablecoin balances. By the end of September, Allium recorded $1.73 billion on Plasma, $831 million on Robinhood Chain, $718 million on Tempo, and $528 million on Arc. Classified September payments reached $168 million on Plasma and $24 million on Tempo, while activity on Arc and Robinhood Chain had not yet been fully classified.
Regulatory frameworks are becoming more defined, though implementation remains uneven. The U.S. GENIUS Act was signed into law on July 18, 2025, with effectiveness linked to 18 months after enactment or 120 days after final implementing rules, whichever comes first. Proposals released by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Treasury in 2026 remain proposals. In Europe, MiCA rules and an Oct. 8 statement from the European Securities and Markets Authority set supervisory expectations for services involving unauthorized stablecoins.
The available data points to substantial growth in stablecoin transfer activity classified as payments, especially through USDT and Tron. Yet the distance between raw transfers, adjusted flows, and model-labeled payments shows why the $482 billion estimate is better treated as a developing measure of onchain economic use than as a final tally of global commerce.
For deeper context on rising stablecoin use and regulation, explore why 2026 could redefine global stablecoins now.
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