JPMorgan, led by Managing Director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, reiterated that the stablecoin market will not reach a trillion-dollar scale by 2028 as some institutions predict, and the actual demand for stablecoins is not as strong as the market imagines.

The JPMorgan team pointed out that current demand for stablecoins is still primarily tied to the activity of the crypto ecosystem itself, rather than widespread adoption from the mainstream financial system; the institutional use of stablecoins is mainly focused on their role as cash or collateral for crypto trading (including derivatives trading and DeFi lending), rather than for broader payment or settlement scenarios.

Specifically regarding scale predictions, the team maintained its previous forecast from July 2025 of a stablecoin market size of $500 billion to $600 billion by 2028, clearly labeling some institutions' forecasts of $2 trillion to $4 trillion as "overly optimistic."

The core argument of the JPMorgan team is that the growth of the stablecoin market size will follow the overall trend of the cryptocurrency market, rather than expanding independently of the crypto market; they specifically noted that "an increase in the use of stablecoins in payment scenarios does not necessarily mean that the required circulating supply will grow significantly," as the velocity of money is more critical than absolute supply size.

In terms of data, the team disclosed that the current stablecoin market size has exceeded $300 billion (with an increase of about $100 billion expected in 2025), including approximately $48 billion in new USDT, about $34 billion in USDC growth, and an increase of about $20 billion in stablecoins held by derivatives exchanges; the annualized circulation velocity of USDT on Ethereum is about 50 times.

From a market mechanism perspective, JPMorgan's analysis effectively delineates the "demand boundary" for stablecoins—indicating that currently and for the foreseeable future, the core use scenarios for stablecoins remain concentrated within the crypto asset trading ecosystem (as trading margins, DeFi collateral, etc.), rather than penetrating into broader institutional scenarios such as traditional payments and cross-border settlements; if this judgment holds, it implies that the narrative of "stablecoins penetrating traditional institutional payments" backed by previous investments from companies like Visa, Circle, and Ripple in stablecoin payment infrastructure may materialize more slowly than the market expects. Additionally, the report mentioned tokenized bank deposits (such as JPMorgan's own JPM Coin), SWIFT's blockchain-related initiatives, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) like the digital euro and digital yuan, which may further limit the market share of stablecoins in institutional payment scenarios. Who benefits: Traditional banks like JPMorgan that launch their own tokenized deposit products may face less pressure from stablecoin alternatives in the competition for institutional payment scenarios than previously expected; who is under pressure: stablecoin payment infrastructure startups that previously based their valuations and financing on the optimistic narrative of "rapidly increasing stablecoin institutional penetration" may need to recalibrate their growth expectations according to JPMorgan's more conservative scale predictions.

Source: Public Information