Bitcoin now settles Visa-scale volumes, but most is for wholesale, not coffee

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Bitcoin and US dollar–pegged stablecoins are emerging arsenic a planetary alternate for moving worth crossed borders without banks and paper networks, arsenic the Bitcoin network’s colony measurement begins to rival the world’s largest outgo giants.

Bitcoin (BTC) settled $6.9 trillion worthy of payments implicit the past 90 days, which is “on par with oregon supra Visa and Mastercard,” according to blockchain information level Glassnode’s integer plus probe report for the 4th fourth of 2025, published connected Wednesday.

Over the aforesaid period, Visa processed $4.25 trillion successful outgo measurement and Mastercard $2.63 trillion, for a combined $6.88 trillion, according to the report.

“Activity is migrating off-chain arsenic flows determination to #ETFs and brokers, but Bitcoin and #stablecoins proceed to predominate on-chain settlement,” Glassnode said connected X.

Bitcoin’s economical colony inactive tiny adjacent to cards

Once interior transfers betwixt addresses controlled by the aforesaid entity are stripped out, Bitcoin’s “economic” colony is person to $870 cardinal per quarter, oregon astir $7.8 cardinal per day, Glassnode estimated. The steadfast said the numbers inactive amusement Bitcoin’s increasing relation arsenic a “globally applicable colony network, bridging some organization and retail transaction flows.”

This fig pales successful examination to Visa’s $39.7 cardinal regular mean transaction volume, oregon Mastercard's $26.2 billion, the lion’s stock of which is utilized for user retail spending and regular needs.

In contrast, Bitcoin’s colony measurement is chiefly attributed to trading, remittances, and store-of-value investment, arsenic planetary merchant adoption remains low.

Worldwide, lone 20,599 merchants judge Bitcoin payments according to BTCmap, compared to Visa’s 175 cardinal planetary merchant locations.

Stablecoins determination $225 cardinal a day, but mostly bots

Stablecoins are emerging arsenic different planetary worth transportation alternative, acknowledgment to their fixed price, debased transaction fees and 24/7 availability.

Stablecoins are present moving an mean of $225 cardinal successful worth per day, according to the 30-day moving mean of aggregate transportation measurement for the apical 5 stablecoins calculated by Glassnode.

Yet, astir 70% of the $15.6 trillion stablecoin transfers during the 3rd 4th of 2025 were linked to automated trading bots, not integrated activity.

Organic non-bot enactment lone accounted for astir 20% of the total, portion the remaining 9% was attributed to interior astute declaration transfers and interior speech transactions, according to a probe study from crypto speech CEX.io.

The exchange’s researchers said it was “crucial” to separate betwixt integrated and bot enactment for policymakers to measure the systemic hazard and real-world adoption of stablecoin payments.