Stablecoins Emerge as B2B Payment Tool, With Corporate Clients Making Up 98% of Volume

Stablecoins are moving beyond retail investors and becoming a key payment tool in the business-to-business market, according to a new analysis.

Cointelegraph reported on June 3 that Paybis, a cryptocurrency trading and payments infrastructure provider, said about 98% of the stablecoin payment volume processed on its platform from January through April this year came from corporate clients.

That was up sharply from 36% in 2023.

Citing McKinsey data, Paybis said global stablecoin payment volume reached about $390 billion last year, with roughly 60% estimated to have come from B2B transactions.

On the Paybis platform, stablecoins accounted for 86% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume in April, compared with just 12% in July 2023.

Digital goods companies, crypto firms, technology companies, retail and e-commerce businesses, and fintech firms were the main sources of demand. Those industries accounted for more than 78% of all corporate stablecoin transactions.

Survey results also pointed to broader stablecoin adoption. About 22.5% of respondent companies said they already use stablecoins for cross-border transfers or plan to adopt them within the next 12 months.

Companies still tend to overestimate the cost and processing time of stablecoin payments. About half of respondents expected transfers to take from one hour to a full day to complete, while roughly one-third said fees would be around 3%.

Paybis said actual stablecoin payment costs are typically less than 1%, while processing usually takes from a few seconds to several minutes depending on the network.

Meanwhile, DefiLlama data showed global stablecoin market capitalization has risen to about $319.5 billion from $247.3 billion a year earlier. Tether's USDT leads the market with about a 59% share, followed by Circle's USD Coin at roughly $76 billion.