A senior Coinbase executive has forecast that stablecoin transfer volumes will overtake traditional fiat payment volumes by roughly 2031. Stablecoin adjusted transfer volumes hit $719 billion in December 2024 alone, pushing the annual total to $27.6 trillion. That figure already exceeded the combined transaction volumes of Visa and Mastercard by over 7%.
The Base advantage
Base, Coinbase’s Layer-2 network, processed 62% of all global onchain stablecoin transaction volume during Q1 2026, outpacing every other blockchain combined. Base stablecoin transactions grew tenfold year-over-year during that same quarter, while USDC holdings on the Coinbase platform hit an all-time high.
Coinbase’s stochastic models project the total stablecoin market cap centering around $1.2 trillion by the end of 2028. The current figure sits at approximately $275 billion as of mid-2025, meaning the market would need to roughly quadruple in three and a half years to hit that target. Broader industry estimates are even more aggressive, with projections ranging between $2 trillion and $3 trillion by the 2028 to 2030 window.
Traditional finance is already showing up
