Stablecoins are moving far beyond their original role inside crypto markets and are increasingly being framed as a core layer of modern financial infrastructure. According to Ripple Managing Director for the Middle East and Africa Reece Merrick, stablecoins processed $33 trillion in transaction volume in 2025, a figure he said was roughly double Visa’s annual payment volume. The comment underscores how quickly dollar-pegged digital assets are being repositioned from trading tools into instruments for institutional finance, global settlements, and emerging-market payments.
Merrick made the case that the industry has now reached an inflection point. In his view, infrastructure that once seemed early or experimental is becoming operational at scale, while demand from institutions is finally arriving in force. He linked that momentum directly to Ripple’s own strategy, describing RLUSD as the company’s answer to a market that increasingly wants dollar-backed, enterprise-grade, institution-ready digital money. His message was straightforward: the rails are being built, compliance expectations are rising, and stablecoin demand is no longer hypothetical.
Growth metrics point to a rapidly expanding market
The data highlighted by Merrick paints a picture of broad acceleration across the sector. He said stablecoin transaction volume grew 72% year over year in 2025, while active users rose 146% across 106 countries. Total market capitalization reached $320 billion, suggesting that adoption is widening across both institutional and retail segments. Taken together, these numbers indicate that stablecoins are becoming more deeply embedded in the wider digital asset economy and are beginning to interact more directly with traditional financial use cases.
What makes the trend notable is not just the scale of activity, but the type of demand now entering the market. Stablecoins have historically been associated with exchange liquidity, trading settlement, and onchain capital movement. That foundation still matters, but the current growth narrative is increasingly centered on practical financial workflows: cross-border business payments, remittances, payroll distribution, and treasury operations. For institutions, this matters because stablecoins can potentially combine the speed and programmability of blockchain networks with the familiar denomination of fiat currency.
Emerging markets remain central to adoption
Merrick also emphasized that some of the strongest growth is taking place in regions where conventional financial rails are often costly, slow, or constrained by currency instability. He pointed to Turkey as the largest digital asset market in the Middle East and North Africa, driven in part by currency volatility and ongoing demand for dollar-denominated assets. In these conditions, stablecoins can serve not only as a medium of exchange but also as a practical store of value relative to local currency pressure.
In Africa, he highlighted Nigeria, where annual remittance flows amount to about $59 billion. Stablecoins, he said, are increasingly replacing traditional transfer rails in such corridors. This is a meaningful shift because remittances have long been burdened by high fees, long settlement times, and fragmented intermediaries. When blockchain-based dollar instruments can reduce friction in that process, they become relevant not just to crypto users but to families, workers, and small businesses that rely on timely international transfers.
The United Arab Emirates was cited as another notable case. Merrick said the country has introduced a dirham-backed stablecoin, DDSC, that has been approved for institutional settlements and is targeting a $170 billion global market. That detail is important because it signals a broader trend beyond dollar-backed tokens alone: regional and local-currency stablecoins may also find a role where governments, regulated entities, and enterprises want blockchain-based settlement instruments aligned with domestic monetary systems.
Enterprise use cases are no longer theoretical
Ripple’s framing of the opportunity goes beyond headline transaction volume. Merrick listed several concrete applications where stablecoins are already gaining ground: cross-border B2B payments, remittances, payroll automation, treasury management, and inflation protection in emerging markets. These are all areas where legacy systems often suffer from delays, reconciliation complexity, and foreign-exchange costs. Stablecoins do not solve every issue on their own, but they can streamline how value moves between counterparties, especially when integrated into programmable financial workflows.
Among these use cases, cross-border B2B payments stood out as one of the fastest-growing segments. Merrick said global flows in this category increased 733%, reaching $226 billion. That figure suggests companies are increasingly experimenting with or adopting stablecoins for supplier payments, settlement between international entities, and other treasury-related transfers. For businesses operating across multiple jurisdictions, the appeal is clear: faster settlement, reduced dependence on banking cut-off times, and potentially lower costs tied to foreign exchange and correspondent banking chains.
The importance of this trend lies in its institutional implications. Once stablecoins are used for treasury and business settlements, they move closer to the core of enterprise finance rather than remaining on the edge of digital-asset markets. That shift raises the strategic value of compliant issuance, licensed payment infrastructure, and trusted counterparties. It also helps explain why major industry players are increasingly focusing on regulated products and institutional-grade services rather than purely retail expansion.
Ripple’s message: infrastructure and demand are converging
Ripple’s comments should also be read in the context of the company’s broader effort to position itself as a bridge between blockchain-based payments and regulated financial institutions. By emphasizing RLUSD as enterprise-grade and institution-focused, the company is signaling that it sees the next phase of stablecoin competition as a race for real economic utility, not just token issuance scale. In that environment, success may depend on who can offer the strongest combination of compliance, interoperability, liquidity access, and integration into real payment flows.
Merrick summarized the momentum with a simple claim: “The use cases are real and growing fast.” That line captures the core of the current stablecoin thesis. The market is no longer being discussed solely in terms of crypto trading efficiency or speculative capital rotation. Instead, stablecoins are increasingly being judged by whether they can improve how money moves in the real world—between businesses, across borders, and into regions where access to reliable financial infrastructure remains uneven.
Whether stablecoins ultimately become a permanent pillar of global finance will depend on regulation, market trust, redemption quality, and integration with existing institutions. Still, the figures shared by Ripple suggest that the category has already entered a new stage. With transaction volume reaching tens of trillions of dollars, user adoption spreading across more than a hundred countries, and enterprise applications expanding rapidly, stablecoins are emerging as one of the most consequential sectors in digital finance.
For Ripple, that creates both an opening and a challenge. The opening is clear: if institutions want compliant digital dollars and programmable settlement tools, demand for products like RLUSD could grow substantially. The challenge is that the same opportunity is attracting a wider field of issuers, payment firms, fintechs, and regulated financial players. As the market matures, the competitive advantage may come not from being early, but from proving that stablecoins can operate reliably at institutional scale. On that point, Ripple’s latest message is unambiguous: the market is here, the infrastructure is catching up, and stablecoins are becoming a serious force in global payments.