Last year, stablecoin offering past $300 billion and volume in the chain approached $46 trillion. Behind these numbers, user behavior has changed significantly: people are no longer just parking money in stablecoins. They spend them, trade them, and increasingly treat them like the default balance in their wallets.
To understand what’s driving this change, we’ve put together what we’re seeing from the Changelly app and website and some recent research to map out where this is going. And we will be hosting on May 15 a podcast and an open conversation to discuss what this all means for companies thinking about stablecoin infrastructure.
How we looked at the data
Changelly has compiled the report on stablecoins based on the industry-wide trends in 2025. Moreover Changeable and simple conducted a survey of consumer card usage and spending data among more than 3,000 users, which also shows significant shifts in stablecoin perception.
Five Stablecoin Trends for 2026
1. Stablecoins are now essential, not optional.
Stablecoins were involved in 23.78% of completed transactions on our platform last year, and those transactions were about 5x larger than non-stablecoin transactions, meaning people are using them for meaningful transfers. Expect stablecoins to become the default wallet balance for more fintech products.
2. Stablecoins have moved from a safe haven to an active tier.
The old story was that during recessions, users fled to stablecoins and waited. Current trends no longer support this. Participation in swaps involving stablecoins grew 33% year-over-year, and flows between crypto and stablecoins are almost perfectly balanced. Users circulate through stablecoins and do not hide within them. This is much closer to how settings already work.
3. Daily expenses are where the breakthrough actually happened.
Of the users we surveyed, 60.6% already spend money via crypto cards. The average transaction size is around $40, and 60-70% of spend is on groceries, transportation, and other routine categories. These are everyday categories and everyday amounts; the infrastructure happens to be crypto.
4. The barrier is no longer technical.
Of current crypto card users, 59% report no technical problems. Among non-users, 58% point to a lack of understanding as the main reason they haven’t tried it yet. This means that the infrastructure has caught up. The gap now is onboarding and communication.
Open Talk: Stablecoin infrastructure for businesses
Changelly organizes one live session on YouTube on May 15, 2026 titled “The rise of stablecoins: infrastructure every company must build”.
John Adam Khandjian (CGO at Changelly) will join Alex Emelian (CEO and co-founder of Stablerail) to discuss:
- How stablecoins became the real onboarding layer in crypto
- Why holders turned into spenders
- Why product design and user insight are now driving adoption more than infrastructure
The format is a 20-minute conversation, followed by 40 minutes of live question and answer sessions. If you would like to attend and bring questions, please register via the Google form.
Disclaimer: Please note that the content of this article is not financial or investment advice. The information contained in this article is solely the opinion of the author and should not be considered trading or investment recommendations. We make no guarantees about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information. The cryptocurrency market suffers from high volatility and occasional random movements. Any investor, trader or regular crypto user should research multiple points of view and be familiar with all local regulations before making an investment.