Stablecoin rails are on pace to challenge incumbent cross-border networks by 2026, as monthly on-chain dollar settlement already runs in the trillions and merchant access widens through mainstream processors.
The crossover case rests on three levers. First, payments access is improving. Stripe said it has reintroduced crypto payments, starting with USDC on Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon, putting stablecoins back into standard checkout flows with further feature rollouts in 2025.
Coinbase and PayPal followed by waiving fees on PYUSD conversions on April 24, and the integration enables merchant settlement in PYUSD instead of card rails.
Stablecoin payments are not a like-for-like series with either, so a scenario lens is more useful for a 2026 crossover narrative than headline comparisons of raw totals.
A simple forward model anchored to observable drivers produces a $3 trillion to $5 trillion 2026 payments-settlement range.
Assume monthly active addresses compounding 2% to 3% month over month as merchant rails broaden through Stripe and fee-free PYUSD conversions, average payment ticket in the $400 to $1,200 band as remittance and B2B use normalizes, off-ramp penetration to mainstream accounts rising via processors and exchanges, and L2 costs staying near post-Dencun levels.
Apply a conservative haircut to exclude internal exchange churn, then scale by months and a 10% to 20% cash-out factor. Under those constraints, annualized end-user settlement clears $3 trillion in a base case and pushes toward $5 trillion if address growth and average ticket expand together.
Macro tailwinds strengthen the floor. The U.S. GENIUS Act, now law, requires fiat-backed reserves and monthly disclosures, reinforcing dollar-stablecoin credibility and, by extension, demand for short-dated Treasuries that sit behind many tokens.
On acceptance, PayPal cites tens of millions of merchant relationships in filings and industry trackers, which, combined with Stripe’s return to stablecoin checkout, extends distribution beyond crypto-native channels.
The 2026 crossover is less about displacing SWIFT or cards and more about stablecoins absorbing specific corridors where speed, cost, and 24/7 settlement are binding constraints, with on-chain volumes already ample, fees compressed by L2 upgrades, and regulatory clarity catalyzing merchant and treasury adoption.
