Here's something interesting we found: In 2024, stablecoins moved $27.6 trillion—more than Visa and Mastercard combined ($23 trillion). In Argentina, freelancers are literally saying "banks are meaningless" while getting paid in USDT. But will crypto completely replace your bank? Probably not. Let us walk you through what we discovered.
Think of stablecoins as digital dollars that live on the blockchain. The total value of all stablecoins hit $200 billion by late 2024 and has grown to about $310 billion today. Some analysts predict it could reach $2 trillion by 2028.
USDT (Tether) dominates this space, controlling 60-70% of the market. Every single day, it processes $50-70 billion in transactions. To put that in perspective, that's roughly what Visa handles daily.
Meanwhile, traditional payment apps are growing too. Zelle processed over $1 trillion in 2024. Venmo has 97 million users. But here's the catch: these apps mostly work only within the US. Try sending money to a friend in another country, and you're stuck.
This is where things get interesting.
Sending money internationally through a bank (SWIFT): 1-5 business days, and you'll pay around $45 in fees for a $100 transfer. That's 45% of your money gone.
Sending USDT on TRON network: Under 1 minute, $2 in fees. That's 2%.
Sending USDT on Polygon: A few seconds, $0.0001 in fees. Basically free.
We found that in developing countries, people can save up to 70% on fees by using crypto instead of traditional remittance services.
One more thing: Banks close on weekends and holidays. Crypto works 24/7, 365 days a year. Your money doesn't take vacations.
This isn't just theory. It's happening right now in countries with unstable currencies.
Argentina had 300% inflation in 2024. People's savings were evaporating. The response? Crypto trading hit $93.9 billion, and 61.8% of it was stablecoins. A freelancer named Martina Diaz told researchers: "I get paid in USDT, keep some on Binance, and buy groceries with a crypto debit card. Banks are meaningless to me."
Turkey has the world's highest crypto ownership rate—27.1% of the population. When your currency loses value every month, holding digital dollars makes sense.
Nigeria banned banks from processing crypto. What happened? People moved to WhatsApp and Telegram for peer-to-peer trading, hitting $1.2 billion in volume.