Stablecoins move over $400 million per hour on average as off-hours transfers dominate, Coinbase and The Block study finds

People are moving more than $400 million worth of stablecoins per hour on average, with the majority settled outside of U.S. banking hours, according to a new study from Coinbase and The Block Pro Research.

The report, titled "The Always-On Dollar," found that stablecoins moved more than $400 million per hour on average in organic transfer activity during the third quarter. Over the 12 months ending July 31, around 73% took place outside U.S. banking hours. 

"For businesses, that availability can also make working capital more productive," the study said. "Faster settlement can reduce delays and the need to fund payment accounts in advance, leaving more cash available for operations or investment rather than tied up supporting transfers."

For retail users, stablecoins help save on remittance fees. Sending a $200 remittance in USDC on Base is about 86% cheaper than sending the amount on traditional rails, per the report. This can meaningfully benefit migrant workers, it noted.

With the growing understanding of such benefits, adjusted stablecoin transaction volume has quadrupled since the start of 2023, reaching $891 billion in Q3. Stablecoins are on track to reach $1.5 trillion in quarterly adjusted transfer volume by the end of 2027 at current growth rates, according to the report.

The full impact of stablecoin adoption has yet to be realized. Moving 80% of international transactions onto stablecoin rails could inject an additional $155 billion into global annual GDP, according to the report.

In the agentic economy

Some 293 million unique blockchain addresses now hold stablecoins, exceeding the combined cardholder base of American Express and Discover, and nearly double the mobile banking user count of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citi combined. However, blockchain addresses do not necessarily represent individual users.

Wall Street isn't staying on the sidelines — seven of the ten largest U.S. banks have already tested stablecoins or tokenized deposits for settlement, with the remaining three signaling plans to follow.

Looking ahead, the report argued that stablecoins will likely be the payment rail for AI agents. By 2030, $3 trillion to $5 trillion of global business-to-consumer commerce is expected to be mediated by AI agents, according to McKinsey.

"With stablecoins, an AI agent can pay another agent for a task, purchase a single API call, or buy a small amount of data or compute on demand," the report said. "This makes tiny, one-off transactions practical without a subscription or billing account – a model legacy payment systems were not built to support."