Stablecoin supply did not increase but was used for more payments. According to Allium, in the first nine months of 2026, the total stablecoin supply rose just 0.4% to $305 billion. However, the value of payments made using stablecoins increased 45% to $482 billion. This is because existing stablecoins are being reused more frequently, enabling payment growth without requiring new money issuance. Circle is the clearest example: USDC supply remained nearly flat at $73.9 billion, yet the company’s payment volume exceeded $58 billion annually—more than 15 times higher than the previous year. Experts also caution against using total blockchain transaction volume as a measure of real activity. While that figure reached $97.9 trillion, most of it consists of internal transfers between exchanges or bot activity. Genuine payments—the $482 billion mentioned above—account for only about 0.5%.