UPD: Tether overtakes Visa and MasterCard in terms of settlement volume

As we wrote earlier, 2022 was quite a difficult year for stablecoins, but they managed to reach a record settlement volume, exceeding $7 trillion. Then, Peter Johnson predicted that the total settlement volume of stablecoins in 2023 would bypass Visa.

Alex Harutunian

Jan 20, 2023 - 1 min read

Today we can observe that his prediction may have come true much sooner! On January 14, Tether shared with its users news that it had overtaken Visa and MasterCard in terms of settlement volume at the end of 2022.

2022 Settlement Volume pic.twitter.com/k87FrknKr4
— Tether (@Tether_to) January 14, 2023

According to Tether, the settlement volume of the stablecoin in 2022 amounted to $18.2 trillion, while Visa's settlement volume was $14.1 trillion, and MasterCard's was $7.7 trillion for the same period.

As before, the question remains whether it is correct to compare stablecoins with credit cards, since stablecoins are used for trading crypto assets, and cards are for buying household items. This is also echoed by a Twitter users under the Tether post.

This is an embarrassment

Nobody buys any actual goods with Tether this is just moving a number from one wallet into another over and over
— Sebastian Peitsch (@SPeitsch) January 14, 2023

Despite the controversy, the trend towards the growing popularity of stablecoins cannot but please. We will continue our observations and report on the news!