Stablecoin founders cluster in the West, but the volume tells a different story

Most stablecoin founders sit in offices in San Francisco, New York, or London. Most stablecoin volume does not flow through San Francisco, New York, or London.

That disconnect, between where stablecoins are created and where they’re actually moving money, has become one of the most telling data points in crypto right now. Ecosystem maps from firms like a16z show founder concentrations that look nothing like the heat maps of real transaction activity.

The numbers behind the mismatch

Real-world stablecoin payment volume hit roughly $400 billion in 2025. A full 60% of that came from business-to-business transactions, not retail speculation or DeFi yield farming.

Global fiat-backed stablecoin supply exceeded $273 billion by March 2026. For context, that figure was approximately $6.8 billion in March 2020. A 40x increase in six years.

Adjusted transaction volumes grew 91% year-over-year in 2025, reaching $10.9 trillion.

Yet the companies issuing these tokens remain overwhelmingly headquartered in Western economies. Tether is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands with operations tied to Hong Kong and Europe. Circle is based in Boston.

Where the money actually moves

According to IMF estimates, the absolute highest stablecoin flows in 2024 were concentrated in Asia-Pacific and North America. But when you measure stablecoin activity relative to GDP, a completely different picture emerges. Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean all showed the highest engagement proportional to their economic size.

Tether’s USDT dominates in these emerging markets. Circle’s USDC tends to capture more share in advanced economies where regulatory compliance and institutional trust carry more weight. While US-centric providers like Bridge capture some market share, the ground-level infrastructure handling daily transactions often belongs to companies most Western investors have never heard of.

Why the gap matters

Analyst Gaspard Lezin and others have pointed out that this geographic mismatch creates real strategic blind spots. Founders building from San Francisco naturally optimize for US regulatory frameworks, US banking relationships, and US user expectations. Meanwhile, the fastest-growing demand sits in Lagos, Jakarta, Sao Paulo, and Nairobi.

The regulatory dimension compounds the problem. Each region where stablecoin usage is surging has its own evolving framework. The EU has MiCA. The US is still debating legislation. Emerging markets are writing rules in real time.

Traders watching the USDT versus USDC dynamic should note that emerging market volume growth may continue to outpace developed economy adoption. That makes Tether’s distribution advantage in those regions a structural moat, not just a legacy position, even as Circle’s regulatory positioning gives it an edge with institutional money in the West.

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