Stablecoins are shifting from a crypto native instrument to a core piece of institutional market plumbing, in line with a brand new cross-sector outlook report from Moody’s.
Within the report, revealed Monday, the rankings company mentioned stablecoins processed about 87% extra settlement quantity in 2025 than the 12 months earlier than, reaching $9 trillion in exercise primarily based on business estimates of onchain transactions, relatively than purely financial institution‑to‑financial institution flows.
Moody’s mentioned fiat‑backed stablecoins and tokenized deposits are evolving into “digital money” for liquidity administration, collateral actions and settlements throughout an more and more tokenized monetary system.
Stablecoins plug into institutional rails
Moody’s positioned stablecoins alongside tokenized bonds, funds and credit score merchandise as a part of a broader convergence between conventional and digital finance.
Banks, asset managers and market infrastructure suppliers spent 2025 working pilots on blockchain settlement networks, tokenization platforms and digital custody, searching for to streamline issuance, put up‑commerce processes and intraday liquidity administration.
The report estimated that, throughout these initiatives, greater than $300 billion might be invested in digital finance and infrastructure by 2030 as corporations construct out the rails for big‑scale tokenization and programmable settlement.
Inside that image, stablecoins and tokenized deposits more and more act because the settlement asset for cross‑border funds, repo (short-term secured loans the place one social gathering sells securities and agrees to purchase them again later at the next worth) and collateral transfers.
Moody’s famous that regulated establishments used money and US Treasury‑backed stablecoins in 2025 to facilitate intraday actions between funds, credit score swimming pools and buying and selling venues, with trials in banks comparable to Citigroup and Société Générale, amongst others.
JPM Coin is cited for instance of a deposit token mannequin that integrates programmable funds and liquidity administration into current banking infrastructure, illustrating how “digital money” layers can sit on high of conventional core programs.
Associated: How US banks are quietly making ready for an onchain future
Regulation and dangers for “digital money”
Regulation is beginning to meet up with this shift. The report highlighted the European Union’s Markets in Crypto‑Belongings Regulation (MiCA) framework, US stablecoin and market construction proposals and licensing frameworks in Singapore, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates as proof of a converging international method to tokenization, custody and redemption guidelines.
In Europe, Société Générale‑Forge’s EURCV and associated initiatives are cited as examples of bank-issued merchandise developed below the EU’s rising stablecoin framework, whereas within the Gulf, banks and regulators are exploring UAE dirham‑referenced fee tokens and broader digital cash architectures.
Nonetheless, Moody’s pressured that the transformation is much from threat‑free. As extra worth strikes onto “digital rails,” the report warned that sensible contract bugs, oracle failures, cyberattacks on custody programs and fragmentation throughout a number of blockchains may create new types of operational and counterparty threat.
The company argued that safety, interoperability and governance might be simply as necessary as regulatory readability if stablecoins are to operate as dependable institutional settlement belongings relatively than new sources of systemic vulnerability.