8x faster than US cash: The $1T network settling millions while banks sleep on weekends

Stablecoin supply has roughly doubled since January 2024, while entity-adjusted transaction volume has grown fourfold to fivefold, according to Coinbase Institutional, opening a wide gap between the amount of dollar liquidity held onchain and the volume of activity that liquidity supports.Market capitalization records the stock of stablecoins in circulation, which captures available liquidity, reserve demand, and issuer scale. Transaction throughput, on the other hand, records how intensively those tokens move through exchanges, payment systems, treasury accounts, and settlement workflows.A system holding $500 billion that moves infrequently offers greater capacity than one holding $250 billion, but the smaller system can support more economic activity when each dollar changes hands repeatedly. Stablecoins are now moving toward that second model, where network value increasingly reflects how much can be settled with the existing pool of digital dollars.Coinbase’s indexed comparison shows the shift clearly: stablecoin market capitalization has roughly doubled from its January 2024 level, while adjusted transaction volume has grown several times faster. Monthly adjusted volume has cl...