Infrastructure
Transfers supporting issuance, redemption, bridges, custody and settlement infrastructure.
Operational movement is not automatically a payment to a merchant.
Comparable category time series: not verified publicly.
Adjusted · Jan–Sep 2026
$2.4T
Allium report · rounded transfer value
1-year growth · same-period YoY
+47.6%
Jan–Sep 2026 vs Jan–Sep 2025; not full-year CAGR
3-year CAGR
Not available
Comparable 2023 endpoint not publicly verified
Volume developments
Verified same-period observations for 2025–2026. No fabricated monthly interpolation or full-year 2026 forecast.
USD trillions · same-period on-chain transfer value
Published same-period growth: +47.6%. Growth is taken from Allium’s unrounded source calculation; rounded chart totals can yield a different percentage.
Allium report · Exhibit 2Two-year history coverage: a complete numerical October 2024–September 2026 monthly export has not been verified. The public Visa / Allium dashboard offers a 24M view; the October report charts January 2025–September 2026. These are linked rather than recreated with invented points.
Monthly history · BCG / Allium
January–December 2025 · separate methodology, not joined to the 2026 report.
USD trillions · monthly transfer value
Publicly shared numeric results retrieved 25 October 2026; no earlier or 2026 monthly rows in this dataset. BCG’s narrative and exported totals differ (for example, payment transaction counts); the chart uses exported numeric observations. Source: BCG / Allium dashboard. These are historical snapshots, not a supported automatic API feed.
Growth and CAGR
One year
A one-year CAGR equals growth between comparable annual or trailing-12-month totals. The verified +47.6% compares two nine-month periods one year apart; it is reported as YoY, not a measured full-year CAGR. Raw transfers grew 133.0%; classified payments grew 45.4% over the same comparison.
Three years
CAGR = ((ending volume ÷ starting volume)^(1 ÷ 3) − 1) × 100. A consistently restated 2023 baseline is needed. A 2023 figure from another provider, stablecoin supply or an annualised partial-year estimate is not a valid substitute.
Seven use categories
An analytical taxonomy, not a fabricated percentage split. Allium’s products use different classification layers; these categories cannot be summed across dashboards.
Store of value
Stablecoins held as a dollar-denominated balance or savings substitute.
A balance is a stock, not a flow: inactive holdings do not generate transaction volume.
Comparable category time series: not verified publicly.
Payments
Transfers for goods, services, remittances, payroll and business obligations.
Economic intent needs entity labels or behavioural inference; a wallet transfer alone does not establish a payment.
Comparable category time series: not verified publicly.
Investment and trading
Transfers linked to acquiring or selling assets, exchange activity and collateral movements.
On-chain settlement volume is not exchange trading turnover; off-chain order-book trades are not all recorded on-chain.
Comparable category time series: not verified publicly.
DeFi
Stablecoin movement in lending, liquidity pools, swaps and other decentralised protocols.
One economic action can generate multiple protocol transfers and can overlap with investment and trading.
Comparable category time series: not verified publicly.
Unclassified
Transfers whose entities or economic purpose cannot be reliably assigned.
Unclassified is unknown, not evidence of payments or illicit activity.
Comparable category time series: not verified publicly.
Short-Term Routing
Rapid intermediary hops that pass stablecoins through wallets or contracts before their destination.
Routing can multiply gross volume without creating an additional economic payment.
Comparable category time series: not verified publicly.
Allium documentation includes infrastructure automation, store-of-value behaviour, investment/trade, DeFi and payment labels. “Short-Term Routing” is an interpretive label for rapid intermediary / round-trip flows; its precise mapping and thresholds are not verified. Classification reference · Payment intent reference
What the adjusted 2026 volume contains
Allium report, Jan–Sep 2026 · Exhibit on page 26 · USD billions, rounded. This partition is distinct from the seven requested categories.
| Report classification | Value |
|---|---|
| Investment and trading operations | $785B |
| Large one-off transfers | $786B |
| Payments | $482B |
| Consumer deposits to institutions | $148B |
| Unclassified | $215B |
Large one-off transfers are not automatically “Store of value.” Consumer deposits to institutions are excluded from payments; infrastructure and DeFi transfers are excluded upstream from this adjusted measure.
Sources and comparability
No single source observes every stablecoin, chain or economic intention. Dollar transfer value is distinct from transaction count, market capitalisation and off-chain payment volume. Provider totals are not added together.
Allium · State of Stablecoins and Payments
Primary numerical source
19 October 2026 report; data through 30 September. Exhibit 2 compares Jan–Sep 2025 and 2026; printed figures are rounded.
Visa Onchain Analytics · Allium
Interactive historical coverage
Public 24M and All time-range controls. Fiat-backed coverage; adjusted transfers are not synonymous with payments.
Visa · Methodology changelog
Comparability check
18 September 2026 historical refresh expanded labels and short-term-routing heuristics. Older snapshots should not be spliced into refreshed history.
BCG Digital Assets Intelligence Hub · Allium
Alternative behavioural lens
FY2025: more than $62T raw transfers versus $4.2T inferred economic activity; payments estimated at $350–550B. Not the same adjusted metric as the October Allium report.
Castle Island · Emerging Market Story
Historical cross-check
Own denoising method: $3.7T in 2023 and $2.62T in H1 2024. Not used as CAGR endpoints for the current Allium series.
Allium · Daily volume and category documentation
Definitions and data availability
Daily aggregation schema; adjusted coverage is conditional. Full-history payment tables require an entitled data connection.
Automatic historical updates and a numeric three-year CAGR require a supported Allium data connection or a comparable licensed export. The public dashboards block embedding; open the live source separately.