The Truth About the New Dollar: Stablecoins' Rise

[00:00] Stable coins now move around $76 billion every  weekend. That's a number that makes you check   if someone accidentally added an extra zero and  then check again just to be safe. Stable coins  

[00:12] used to be the boring bit of crypto, right? They  were the digital dollars traders parked in while   deciding whether to ape into Bitcoin or rotate  into altcoins. But according to a new report   from a leading name in the industry, that version  of stable coins has evolved into something much,  

[00:27] much bigger. So today, we're diving into that  report to see what it found, where the biggest   growth is happening, and whether stable coins  are becoming one of the most important pieces   of financial infrastructure in the world. My name  is Louis, and you're watching the Coin Bureau. So,  

[00:43] without further ado, the report we're looking  at today comes from Binance Research titled   Stablecoin: Transforming the Financial Landscape.  We'll just be looking at the main takeaways from   the report today, but we'll link the full report  down below if you want to dig deep yourself. Now,  

[01:00] what is the Binance Research Report actually  saying? Well, the simple version is this.   Stable coins are changing jobs. They started out  as crypto's waiting room. You sold Bitcoin, parked   in USDT or USDC, had a little think, maybe made a  coffee, and then jumped right back into the next  

[01:18] trade. But the report argues that stable coins are  no longer just where money waits. Increasingly,   they are where money actually lives. The report  frames this using a very old idea from economics.  

[01:31] Money usually has three jobs. It stores value,  it moves value, and it settles value. In normal   human English, that means that money should  help you save, pay, and finalize transactions.  

[01:45] Binance research says that stable coins are  now starting to do all three. So less casino   chip between trades and more digital dollar with  a passport, a bank account, and apparently no need  

[01:57] for downtime. So different people are using stable  coins for very different reasons. For one person,   a stable coin might be a way to protect savings  from a weak local currency. For another, it might  

[02:09] be the cheapest way to send money overseas. For a  trader, it might be a settlement layer that keeps   working after traditional markets have gone  home for the weekend and put on sweatpants.   The first major signal Binance Research points to  is not volume, but behavior. The report says that  

[02:26] among Binance users with at least $10 in portfolio  value, 30% now hold more than half their portfolio   in stable coins. Back in 2020, that figure  was just 4%. Now, that is a massive shift. And  

[02:41] then there is the yield angle. According to the  report, Binance Earn claims to have distributed   around $1.2 billion in stable coin rewards since  2022. Now, that is not the same as saying this is  

[02:54] risk-free income, cuz it is absolutely not. But  it does show that stable coin holders do not just   want dollars sitting in there doing nothing. They  want those dollars to at least get off the sofa   and do a few chores for them. The report compares  historical onchain dollar yields of around 2% to  

[03:11] 4% with US national savings deposits average of  0.38%. For someone in a developed market, that   may sound like a better savings product. But for  someone in an economy with high inflation, limited  

[03:25] dollar access, or weak banking options, it could  really make a difference, giving them access to   a financial tool they simply did not have before.  But so far, the most revealing part is premiums.  

[03:37] Binance research says that 87% of fiat currencies  trade at a premium when used to buy stable coins.   And that premium rises with inflation, about 4%  in normal inflation environments, 27% in high  

[03:51] inflation economies, and 62% in hyperinflation  economies. And let's be honest, nobody pays 62%   extra because the app looks pretty. that just  signals urgency. So, the takeaway here is pretty  

[04:06] clear. Binance research is arguing that stable  coin demand is evolving from traders chasing the   next move to people trying to preserve value,  access dollar-like assets or earn a yield that   traditional options may not offer them. And when  the users are both holding stable coins in larger  

[04:22] amounts and paying premiums to get them, that  shows you that there is very strong demand. Now,   before we continue, you could probably tell by  now that there is a lot to keep up with here. So,   if you want to stay on top of what's happening  in crypto without trying to decode the entire  

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[04:53] Okay, the next question is where is all of this  stable coin activity actually sitting? According   to Binance research, exchange stable coin reserves  have grown to around $93 billion and Binance alone  

[05:06] holds about $53 billion of that. I mean, that is  $42 billion more than the next ranked exchange.   Now, reserves are not the whole story here, but  they are a pretty important clue. We could think  

[05:19] of them like fuel in a tank. The more stable coin  liquidity sitting on a platform, the more users   can trade, pay, earn yield, move collateral,  or settle transactions from one place. And this  

[05:31] is where we need to keep the tone balanced. The  report clearly shows that centralized exchanges   are still a major hub for stable coins. That could  be convenient because users can do many things   in one ecosystem instead of jumping between 10  different apps like some crypto obstacle course.  

[05:48] But it also raises concentration questions. If  too much stable coin activity gathers around   a small number of platforms, then transparency,  regulation, security, and operational resilience   become even more important. The report also  argues that big exchange ecosystems can help  

[06:05] newer stable coins scale quickly. One example it  gives is United Stable or U, which reportedly grew   from around $5 million in market cap to over $1  billion by mid 2026. Another example is USD1,  

[06:20] which the report says added more than $1.4 billion  or 43% during the same period. The simple way to   think about this is shelf space. If a new stable  coin gets liquidity, users, and integrations  

[06:33] inside a large ecosystem, it is not sitting in  a quiet back alley of the internet anymore. It   is suddenly in the shopping mall. But apart from  exchanges alone, it is also about currency. Stable  

[06:45] coins are still overwhelmingly dollar denominated,  but Binance Research says non-dollar demand is   becoming more visible. Local currency stable  coins, including Euri, AUR, and KGST, have passed  

[07:00] $5 billion in cumulative trading volume on Binance  since 2025. The report also says average monthly   volume is around $316 million. then that makes  sense because let's be real, not everyone earns  

[07:13] in dollars, pays bills in dollars, or thinks about  risks in dollars. For a European user or business,   for example, a euro stable coin may simply be  more practical than constantly routing everything   through a dollar stable coin. Right? So, the  takeaway here is that stable coin infrastructure  

[07:29] is getting deeper in two directions at once. On  one side, liquidity is concentrating around major   exchange rails. On the other, the currency mix is  slowly broadening beyond just the US dollar. Put  

[07:42] those together and the story of the stable coins  seems to be moving towards more distribution,   more infrastructure, and gradually more ways for  different users around the world to actually use   them. Let's make one thing clear. Market  cap tells you how many stable coins exist.  

[07:58] Transactions tell you whether people are doing  anything useful with them. Think of it like cars.   Counting supply is like counting how many cars are  in the garage. Transaction data tells you whether   anyone is actually driving. According to Binance  research, BNB chain averages around 10 million  

[08:15] stable coin transactions per day with about 15  million monthly active stable coin addresses. The   report also says BNB chain has processed over 5.3  billion stable coin transactions since 2025. Now,  

[08:29] not every transaction equals a coffee purchase  or a remittance payment, obviously, but high   transaction count and active addresses do suggest  that stable coins are being used repeatedly,  

[08:41] not just sitting around looking pretty in wallets.  Oh, and then there is Binance Pay. The report says   monthly merchant payment volume has grown 114%  yearonear and stable coins account for 98% of  

[08:54] total payment volume. Even more interesting,  the median merchant ticket size rose from   $10 in 2025 to $18 in 2026. That may seem like  a small jump, but that's how it starts. People  

[09:07] usually test new payment tools with small amounts  first. It is like trying a new food delivery app.   You start with an easy meal. If that works, maybe  next time it's groceries. Bigger payments usually   mean more confidence. Now, let's focus on the  regional layer a bit. And the simple takeaway  

[09:22] is this. Different regions use stable coins  for different jobs. In some places, the main   use case is saving. In others, it is transfers.  And in more developed trading markets, it can be   settlement. For example, East Asia and the Pacific  accounts for around 70% of Binance earned stable  

[09:39] coin balances. MENA is the fastest growing earn  region with its share rising from 5.53% to 9.21%.   Latin America and the Caribbean saw stablecoin  transfer share rise from 17 to 38%. And North  

[09:54] America excluding the US posted the largest  gain in local currency stable coin trading.   So the big picture looks pretty simple. Stable  coin adoption is becoming more practical but  

[10:06] also more local. The same asset can be a savings  tool in one country, a remittance rail in another,   and a trading settlement layer somewhere else.  Same stable coin, different job description, and   it will be exciting to see how the regions keep  evolving. Now, we get to the part of the report  

[10:23] that feels the most futuristic money that never  sleeps. So, we know that traditional finance still   has a lot of please come back Monday energy. Banks  close, markets pause, and settlement windows still  

[10:38] behave like they need a lunch break. Stable coins  don't really work like that. Binance Research says   adjusted stable coin transfers average around $76  billion every weekend or about $ 38 billion per  

[10:51] day. The report compares that with Visa's average  daily transaction volume of roughly $40 billion.   And speaking of weekends, Financial News does not  politely wait for opening hours. A macro shock,  

[11:04] currency move, or market panic can happen on  a Saturday. Traditional rails may be asleep,   but stable coin rails are still awake, still  moving, and probably overcaffeinated as the   numbers duly suggest. Oh, and then there are AI  agent payments, which sounds slightly sci-fi until  

[11:22] you see the numbers. The report says the median  X42 payment size is just 34, while machine payment   protocol transactions are around 8 cents. Credit  cards were not really built for one robot paying  

[11:34] another robot pocket change to complete some tiny  internet task. This just makes stable coins so   interesting here. For very small programmable  payments, traditional fees can be larger than  

[11:46] the payment itself, which is obviously a problem.  It is like paying a $5 delivery fee for one grape.   Technically possible, emotionally upsetting.  The report also points to onchain FX. Non-doll  

[12:00] stable coin pairs have reached over $3 billion  in volume year to date in 2026, up 670% versus   the comparable period in 2024. Now, compared with  the global FX market, which turns over more than  

[12:15] $7.5 trillion per day, that is still tiny. But  I believe that when tiny things are growing this   fast, they are on their way to something big. And  finally, Binance Research sketches out the bigger  

[12:29] idea, a payment stack with fewer intermediaries.  That means savings, trading, paying, borrowing,   transferring, and swapping currencies without  constantly jumping through banks, card networks,  

[12:42] and FX middlemen. That is not guaranteed,  and regulation still has its say, but it is   clearly the direction that the report wants us  to pay attention to. So when the report calls  

[12:54] this money that never sleeps, that may sound like  some catchy phrase, but it is actually describing   money that can move when banks are closed, when  markets are shut, and even when the user is not  

[13:06] a person at all. So is this a mic drop or what?  So after all of that, the big takeaway from this   Binance research report is pretty simple. Stable  coins are no longer just sitting in the background  

[13:18] of crypto. They are being used to save value, move  value, and settle value. Or in even simpler terms,   people are holding them, sending them, spending  them, and building financial workflows around  

[13:30] them. And what makes this interesting is that  these use cases are not all coming from the same   place. In one region, stable coins may be about  protecting savings. In another, they may be about   cheaper transfers. For traders, they may be about  24/7 settlements. And for AI agents, apparently  

[13:47] they can be about paying each other tiny amounts  of money to do tiny robot things. But of course,   none of this means stable coins are risk-free.  Peg stability, reserve transparency, regulation,  

[14:00] exchange risk, and concentration across major  platforms are all still and all still do have   a lot of influence on how things turn out. So  the point is not that stable coins magically fix  

[14:13] finance. The point is that according to Binance  research, they are becoming harder and harder   for finance to ignore as they become a core part  of the global economy. And that is all that we   have time for for today. But what do you think?  Are stable coins the future of all finance or is  

[14:30] there a little bit too much hype here? Let us  know your thoughts down in the comments below.   And if you want to find out why stable coins are  prime competitors for the likes of JP Morgan,   well, you can watch our video on that right over  here. That is all from me for today and as always,  

[14:48] thanks for watching and I'll see you again  in the next one. This is Louis signing off.