Stablecoins are gearing up for their next super-cycle.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he now expects the stablecoin market to hit $3 trillion by 2030, raising his earlier projection of $2 trillion by 50%, in fresh remarks on Wednesday evening.
Stablecoins are valued at over $300 billion now, DefiLlama data shows. But Bessent says they’re set to “grow tenfold by the end of the decade thanks to the innovation made possible by the Genius Act.”
This is the first time a US Treasury Secretary has explicitly framed stablecoins as a structural growth engine and as a future pillar of US sovereign debt demand.According to Bessent, the US Treasury is now “closely monitoring growth in money market funds and the stablecoin market”, noting that both groups are “large investors in Treasury bills.”
He added that demand for US Treasuries remains strong as ever and that stablecoin issuers will be factored into long-term debt management strategy.
The bullish call is mirrored by bulge bracket investment bank Citi, which predicts the sector to reach $4 trillion by the end of the decade.
Next phase of adoption
Bessent’s new projection lands just as wealth management firm Bernstein released a new report, arguing that stablecoins will become an increasingly powerful force across global liquidity, payments and US sovereign debt markets.
Gautam Chhugani and three other Bernstein analysts highlighted stablecoins as one of the most durable, non-cyclical sectors in crypto, in the report shared with DL News.
The report said that stablecoins will increasingly act as settlement infrastructure for exchanges, payment processors and tokenised markets.
Analysts also pointed to the next wave of corporate adoption, saying “stablecoins will sit at the centre of real-world payments, Treasury liquidity, and the tokenised financial system.”
The firm expects regulated issuers, exchange-native stablecoins and payment giants to compete aggressively for market share.
Bernstein named Circle, the issuer of USDC, as the most strategically positioned player in the space.
“Circle benefits from strong regulatory standing, liquidity, and network scale,” analysts said. “Its partnerships with Coinbase and Binance, integration across 28 blockchains, and facilitation of $2.7 trillion annual transaction volume further strengthen its position.”
In October, Bernstein estimated that Circle’s share price will surge to be worth $230, 134% more than its current value.
