Stablecoin settlement volume keeps climbing
Payment volume settled on stablecoin rails continues to grow through 2026. We look at where the fee revenue lands and what it means for chain selection.
Stablecoins stopped being a trading tool a while ago. A growing share of volume is business payments, remittances and treasury movement between entities that never touch a volatile asset.
That has a straightforward investment consequence: the chains that settle real payment volume earn real fees, and fee revenue is something you can actually model.
Where we think the value accrues
Issuers capture the float. Settlement layers capture fees. Wallets and payment processors capture the customer relationship. Owning all three is not possible, so we express the theme through the layer with the clearest revenue line and the least regulatory single point of failure.
The risk nobody prices properly
Concentration. A large share of settlement runs through a small number of issuers and a small number of banking partners. A single policy change in one jurisdiction can reroute flow overnight, which is why we cap position size on this theme.