On 14 October Standard Chartered pushed its $2 trillion stablecoin estimate from 2028 to 2030. Supply is reported at about $309 billion and has sat in a $300 billion to $320 billion range for twelve months. The bank's answer to a flat float is velocity: each dollar is said to change hands about 30 times a month this year against 15 in 2025, with USDC near 80 from 45 and USDT near 7.
We have not read the report, or the bank's earlier note on the same subject. Everything attributed to either reaches us through coverage, and this note is about what can be established from public data when the document itself cannot be read.
The story being told is that supply stopped growing while usage doubled. That may be true. The figure being used to show it changed meaning between March and October, and nobody has said so.
Different numerator.
1 What The Ratio Divides
Velocity is transfer value over supply. Take the October figures as reported: monthly transfer value averaging just under $10 trillion this year, against supply of about $309 billion. That division gives roughly 32, which is the "about 30" being quoted. The arithmetic is ours, but the inputs are the bank's and they reconcile.
The same coverage describes the record month, $19 trillion in May, as raw on chain transfer value. Raw transfer value is every movement of a token between addresses.
2 The Same Bank, Two Numerators
On 31 March the same desk published a note on the same subject. Coverage at the time reported stablecoin velocity at about six turns a month, having doubled over two years, and the chart carried a footnote that does what the October coverage does not. It defines the term: "Monthly adjusted transaction volumes divided by average supply outstanding. Source: Standard Chartered."
Adjusted, not raw. And six, not thirty.
The two figures can be checked against public data. Allium, the firm behind Visa's on chain dashboard, reported adjusted stablecoin volume of roughly $1.8 trillion for June. Divide by $309 billion of supply and the result is about 5.8. That is the March number. Divide the reported raw monthly average of $10 trillion by the same supply and the result is about 32. That is the October number.
So the March series is adjusted by the bank's own definition, and the October figure reconciles only with raw transfer value. Either the numerator changed between the two notes, or the October figure was always a different series from the one the bank defined in March. We cannot tell which, because we cannot read either document. What we can say is that a reader who saw "six times a month" in March and "thirty times a month" in October, and concluded that usage had quintupled, would be comparing two different things.
The bank's own reasoning in March is worth keeping in view, because it is sound and it cuts in an unexpected direction. Its head of digital assets research was quoted: "If velocity remains constant, rising transactions will create demand for more stablecoins," and "If it increases, that will not be the case, all else equal." Higher velocity, in the bank's own frame, is a reason supply need not grow. Read that way, October's flat float and rising turnover are not a puzzle the velocity figure solves. They are the outcome the March note predicted.
3 What Raw Traffic Contains
The useful document here is Allium's methodology note of 9 September, which exists to explain this exact problem and which we have read in full.
Its opening claim is blunt. "Most of the stablecoin transfer volume you see quoted is not payment activity." On sizing a market from the headline, "Anyone sizing the stablecoin payments market from the top-line figure will overstate it, sometimes by a factor of five." Its FAQ puts organic payment activity at "closer to a fifth or less" of the top line. And it is equally careful about its own product: "Adjusted volume is a modeled figure, and different providers draw the lines differently." "Classification is estimation, not fact."
The note publishes a walk down from raw volume to organic activity. We do not quote those percentages, because the table is headed "Illustrative share of raw volume" and the text calls them "illustrative shares of a raw base, not fixed constants." A figure its own author labels illustrative cannot be used to compute anything. The ratio of about five between raw and adjusted that appears in our arithmetic above comes from two reported totals, not from that table.
What the adjustment removes is described on Visa's dashboard, which runs on Allium's data. The adjusted criteria "aim to remove potential distortions that can arise from certain activity, such as high-frequency trading, bots, bridge routing, and internal exchange operations." Addresses are labelled from a set the page calls "probabilistic determinations of the entities and thematic categories behind commonly used addresses," with heuristic filters for the rest. The dashboard publishes total and adjusted volume and counts. It publishes no velocity ratio.
4 Framework · Three Numbers, Three Claims
| Number | What it counts | What it can support |
|---|---|---|
| Supply | Tokens outstanding | The size of the float |
| Raw transfer volume | Every transfer, including high frequency trading, bots, bridge routing and internal exchange operations | Chain traffic and the load on the rails |
| Adjusted volume | Raw, less labelled and inferred non organic activity | An estimate of economic use, dependent on the model |
| Velocity, March definition | Adjusted volume over average supply | Turnover of the float in estimated economic use. About six |
| Velocity, October figure | Reconciles with raw volume over supply | Traffic per unit of float. About thirty |
The last row is being read as the one above it.
The denominator is not settled either. Three supply figures are in circulation for roughly the same market: about $309 billion in the October coverage, $334 billion in Allium's note as of 3 September, and about $303 billion reported for August. We could not establish what differs between them, and the obvious candidate is which tokens count. The point is narrow. A ratio is carrying a thesis when neither the numerator nor the denominator has a stated definition in the place the ratio is being quoted.
5 The Other Side
Four arguments cut against this note, and the first is the one that would overturn it.
The October report may define its numerator, and may define it as adjusted. If it does, the reconciliation above is a coincidence and this note is wrong. We think the arithmetic makes that unlikely, since adjusted volume over supply gives six and not thirty on every public series we can find, but arithmetic on reported figures is not the document, and we would correct this note if the document says otherwise.
The bank may have changed its measure deliberately and said so. A research desk is entitled to move from an adjusted series to a raw one if it explains why. Our complaint is not with the choice. It is that no coverage we have seen carries the explanation, so the two figures travel as if they were one series.
Bot and exchange traffic is real activity. Market making, bridge routing and exchange settlement move actual dollars, and a dollar funding a market maker's inventory is doing something. Treating it as noise is a choice about what counts as use.
And the adjusted series is not ground truth. Visa's own page calls its labels probabilistic, and Allium says classification is estimation. The March definition is better than the October figure because it is stated, not because it is right.
6 What Would Settle It
- The October report's definition of its numerator. One footnote would settle this note in either direction.
- Whether the bank reconciles its March and October series, or publishes velocity on both bases side by side.
- Whether Visa and Allium publish the filter rules and the label set, rather than the description of them. We could not establish whether that set is public.
- Whether independent providers converge on adjusted volume. Two models that disagree by a factor of five on the same month are not yet measuring the same thing.
- Whether reporting under the GENIUS Act, in force from January 2027, creates a defined measure of payment activity.
If the October numerator is adjusted, this note is wrong and the usage story is stronger than we have allowed. If it is raw, the clearest fact about stablecoins this year is that the float stopped growing, and the number chosen to replace it is a measure of chain traffic that the same bank, seven months earlier, had defined differently and put at six.
7 Sources
Retrieval 15 October 2026.
- Allium, Stablecoin payments: volume vs real activity, 9 September 2026. Read in full. The quoted statements, the fifth or less figure in its FAQ, the supply figure of $334 billion as of 3 September, and the illustrative labelling of its walk down table.
- Visa, on chain analytics dashboard, developed with Allium Labs. Read in full. The adjusted criteria, the probabilistic labelling, the heuristic filters, and the set of metrics published, which does not include a velocity ratio.
- Cointelegraph, Standard Chartered says faster stablecoin turnover could curb demand, 31 March 2026. The chart footnote defining velocity as monthly adjusted transaction volumes divided by average supply outstanding, attributed to Standard Chartered, and the figure of at least six turns a month.
- The Block, Standard Chartered says stablecoin usage rising faster than expected, 31 March 2026. The quoted statements from the bank's head of digital assets research.
- The Block, Standard Chartered stablecoin market report, 14 October 2026. The revised 2030 target, the supply figure and range, the $19 trillion May record described as raw transfer value, the monthly average near $10 trillion, and the velocity multiples.
- Allium, post on the Visa dashboard's June adjusted volume. Roughly $1.8 trillion of adjusted volume for June 2026, as reported by the data provider.
- OX85, Who issues the money?, July 2026, and What does it cost a bank to issue?, September 2026.
On sourcing, and on what we did not use. We did not read either Standard Chartered note. Every figure attributed to the bank comes through the linked coverage, and the March definition is taken from a chart footnote reproduced in that coverage. The two divisions in this note are our own arithmetic on reported totals, not a method the bank has published. We do not use Allium's walk down percentages, which it labels illustrative. Reported figures for total and adjusted volume in other months, and a reported expansion of the labelled address set, come from secondary summaries we could not reconcile with a primary page, and are not relied on. Whether Allium's label set is published or proprietary we could not establish. This note was revised on the day of publication, before distribution, to add the March definition and the reconciliation in section two; the earlier version argued the same point without that evidence.
This note is published for informational purposes and does not constitute investment, legal or tax advice. It concerns the construction of market statistics and is not a view on any token or issuer. Figures and quoted language are as of the dates stated.