Stablecoin Transaction Volume Up 83% Year-on-Year: TRM Labs

The big winner in the crypto world over the past year was stablecoins, with their overall transaction volume rising 83% between July 2024 and July 2025 to reach over $4 trillion in total. According to a new report from blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs, stablecoins now account for 30% of all crypto transaction volume.

Stablecoins also captured a larger share of the overall crypto market compared to traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum than in previous years, with leading stablecoins increasing their share of the crypto market by 52% compared with the same period in 2024.

Angela Ang, TRM’s Head of Policy and Strategic Partnerships, APAC, told Decrypt she largely expects trends to continue, and that “we are still just at the beginning of the stablecoin adoption curve.”

She points out that though stablecoin adoption has hit a record high, they are “still only a fraction of the overall money supply.”

“As institutions seek to leverage digital assets for use cases like value transfer, interest will continue to surge,” she added.

The stablecoin market also remained both highly consolidated and US-dollar-centric in the period looked at. Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC) controlled 93% of the total market, with more than 90% of fiat-backed stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar.

The report comes as the market sentiment on the future of stablecoins remains broadly bullish. The total stablecoin market cap currently sits at roughly $312.2 billion according to CoinGecko. On prediction market Myriad, launched by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, 56% of participants believe this figure could exceed $360 billion before February 2026.

Stablecoins lead illicit crypto activity

While stablecoins are making serious gains in the world of legitimate crypto activity, they are also responsible for a growing share of illicit crypto transactions. Stablecoin transactions accounted for 60% of illicit activity in the year ending July 2025, though 99% of stablecoin use remained licit overall.

TRM attributed the rise in illicit activity to “the same underlying drivers that have made stablecoins attractive for licit activity,” including “low transaction costs, speed, and broad availability on open blockchains like TRON and Ethereum.”

Ang told Decrypt that stablecoins offer bad actors many of the benefits of conventional cryptocurrencies, such as cross-border value transfer at speed, but with “a stability in value” other cryptocurrencies don’t provide.

“Illicit actors use stablecoins to move funds for the same reasons as the rest of us.”

Investment fraud was the primary contributor to illicit volume growth between 2024 and 2025, according to TRM. Meanwhile, within the stablecoin ecosystem, extortion and blackmail activity saw the highest relative growth between January and July 2025, increasing by 380% year-on-year.

South Asia leads the way

In early 2025, South Asia stood out as the region with the highest growth in crypto adoption. Between January and July 2025, the region saw an 80% year-on-year increase in transaction volume, reaching $300 billion in total.

India ranked first in crypto adoption among all countries studied, just ahead of the US. Pakistan came in third, while Bangladesh placed 14th—despite an official ban on crypto in the country.

TRM attributed much of India’s strong adoption to its young population and robust developer infrastructure, and pointed to Pakistan’s plans to establish a Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA).