Risks, Regulation & Use Cases of Stablecoins

Practical use cases, the GENIUS Act and MiCA, the institutional landscape (BlackRock BUIDL, Stripe/Bridge), and the risks every user should understand.

12 min · intermediate · part of Stablecoins & Pegged Assets

Real-World Use Cases

Stablecoins are no longer a curiosity. In 2025, **stablecoin payment volumes reached approximately $11.1 trillion**, an 85% increase from 2024's $5.99 trillion (per Artemis Analytics), pulling within striking distance of Visa's $14.2 trillion in annualized payment volume. **Cross-border remittances**: The global remittance market was about **$905 billion in 2024** per the World Bank, with $685 billion flowing to low- and middle-income countries. Top recipients: India ($129B), Mexico ($68B), the Philippines, Pakistan. Stablecoins typically settle these transfers in minutes for under a dollar — versus traditional remittance corridors that charge 5–10% and take days. **Dollar access in emerging markets**: In countries with capital controls or high inflation, stablecoins are functionally a digital savings account. **Argentina in 2024 saw approximately $91 billion in crypto transfers, of which 61.8% were stablecoins** (compared to a 44.7% global average). Turkey, Nigeria, Lebanon, and Venezuela show similar patterns. The largest pair on Binance in 2024 was **USDT/TRY**, with over $22 billion in volume. **Trading and DeFi infrastructure**: Stablecoins are the unit of account for Aave, Compound, Uniswap, Curve, GMX, Hyperliquid, and essentially every major on-chain venue. Lending, borrowing, perpetual futures, and yield strategies all denominate in stablecoins. **B2B and treasury payments**: **Stripe's October 2024 acquisition of Bridge for $1.1 billion** was a watershed moment, signaling that mainstream payments infrastructure now considers stablecoins core, not fringe. Bridge offers stablecoin payment APIs that let businesses send dollar-denominated tokens globally as easily as sending an email. **Tokenized treasuries and RWA stablecoins**: A new category has emerged. **BlackRock BUIDL** (the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund), launched in 2024, surpassed **$2 billion in AUM by March 2026**. It's a tokenized money market fund that pays daily yield to holders. **Ondo Finance** offers similar tokenized Treasury products. These are not stablecoins in the classical sense — they pay yield and represent fund shares — but they sit alongside stablecoins as on-chain dollar instruments.

Also in this lesson

Stablecoins in DeFi
The Regulatory Landscape: GENIUS Act and MiCA
Key Risks Summary
Best Practices
For Deeper Reading

Key terms

GENIUS Act: The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act. First U.S. federal stablecoin framework. Senate passed June 17, 2025 (68-30); House July 17, 2025; signed by President Trump July 18, 2025.
MiCA: EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation. Stablecoin (ART/EMT) rules effective June 30, 2024; broader CASP rules December 30, 2024. Effectively delisted USDT from EU exchanges.
Remittance: Cross-border money transfer, typically migrant workers sending funds home. Global market ~$905B in 2024 ($685B to low/middle-income countries). Top recipients: India $129B, Mexico $68B.
Stablecoin payment volume: Total dollar value of stablecoin transactions used for payments. Reached ~$11.1T in 2025 (vs. $5.99T in 2024, +85% YoY) per Artemis Analytics, approaching Visa’s $14.2T.
BlackRock BUIDL: BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund. Tokenized money market fund that surpassed $2B AUM by March 2026.
Bridge / Stripe acquisition: Stripe acquired stablecoin payments platform Bridge for $1.1B in October 2024 — a landmark integration of stablecoins into mainstream payments.
Total Value Locked (TVL): Aggregate value of crypto deposited in DeFi protocols. Stablecoins make up a large share of DeFi TVL through lending, liquidity pools, and yield strategies.
CBDC: Central Bank Digital Currency — government-issued digital money. The U.S. has deprioritized a CBDC under GENIUS, favoring regulated private stablecoins.
Address freeze / blacklist: Centralized issuers (Tether, Circle) can render specific addresses unable to transact. Used for OFAC sanctions, hack proceeds, and law-enforcement orders.
sUSDS / sUSDe: Yield-bearing wrapped versions of USDS and USDe. sUSDS pays the Sky Savings Rate; sUSDe captures perpetual funding-rate yield from Ethena’s delta-neutral position.
EURC: Circle’s euro-denominated stablecoin. Became one of the dominant on-chain euros in the EU after MiCA stablecoin rules took effect.
Argentina crypto adoption: Argentina saw ~$91B in crypto transfers in 2024, with 61.8% in stablecoins (vs. 44.7% globally) — a flagship case of stablecoins as digital savings against local-currency inflation.

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Educational only — not financial advice.