Nearly half of consumers across Asia Pacific say they are likely to use stablecoins within the next five years. The data suggests most of them will not — at least not soon.
That is the tension at the heart of a new Visa survey on stablecoin adoption. It is more interesting than the headline number.
What the survey found on stablecoin adoption
Visa’s Consumer 360 study surveyed 14,250 people aged 18 to 65 across 14 Asia Pacific markets. Fieldwork ran in June and July 2026. It found that 46% say they are likely to use stablecoins within five years. Only 16% have used them in the past year.
Awareness is high: 66% know what stablecoins are. Understanding is not. Only 6% show an accurate grasp of how they work. Almost half of those aware still think stablecoins can only buy or sell other cryptocurrencies, and 41% believe they always rise in value.
Trust is the other barrier. Among people who know about stablecoins but have never used them, 38% cite fraud or scam fears and 36% a lack of understanding. The providers they trust most are government or central bank-linked entities (27%) and banks or regulated institutions (26%).
Interest is uneven. Awareness is highest in Hong Kong (84%), India (80%) and Thailand (77%). Intent is strongest in Vietnam and India, both at 67%.
The gap between saying and doing
Visa’s 46% is stated intent. The measured reality is far smaller.
Independent data puts stablecoins at about 0.31% of retail cross-border payment value in 2025. That is US$135 billion of US$44.3 trillion, up from 0.2% a year earlier. Strip out trading and internal transfers and real payment volume was about US$390 billion in 2025, roughly 0.02% of global payment volumes.
Supply tells a similar story. Stablecoins were worth about US$304 billion in late September 2026, below their May peak. Identified payment volume reached at least US$401 billion in the first eight months of 2026, up 42% year on year, while supply grew only about 6%.
So the market is growing fast from a very small base, and most of it is domestic and business-facing, not consumer spending.
Why APAC is the test case
Asia-Pacific is the world’s largest hub for stablecoin payment activity, concentrated in Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. It accounts for roughly half to nearly two-thirds of identified volume.
It is also where the rules are being written. Hong Kong’s Stablecoins Ordinance took effect in August 2025, and its first licences went to HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial in April 2026. Singapore’s MAS published draft Payment Services Act amendments in September. Japan runs a bank-anchored regime. Taiwan passed a virtual-asset law in June.
India, meanwhile, stays cautious and CBDC-led, and China bans private stablecoins outright. Roughly 99% of stablecoins are dollar-pegged; local-currency coins are under 1% of the market.
Visa’s own stake
Visa is not a neutral observer. It launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform in July 2026 — a managed environment for institutions to mint, hold and move stablecoins, starting with Open USD. Its separate settlement pilot has scaled quickly. It went from about US$7 billion annualised in April 2026 to a reported US$20 billion-plus run rate, with more than 160 card programs.
That is the logic behind the survey: the bigger the gap between consumer interest and use, the more Visa’s “trusted rails” pitch matters.
What to watch
Three things will show whether the intent becomes adoption. Whether understanding rises above 6% — the survey’s own data suggests education moves willingness sharply. Whether the regulatory patchwork converges enough for cross-border use. And whether consumer spending, not just business settlement, starts to show up in the payment data.
Until then, the honest reading is that stablecoins are a fast-growing but small rail, and that consumer enthusiasm runs well ahead of consumer comprehension.
Editor’s Note
Sources: Visa‘s release of 5 October 2026 and the Visa Consumer 360 study; Visa’s Visa Stablecoin Platform announcements; and independent adoption data from Allium, FXC Intelligence, McKinsey and Artemis Analytics.
Regulatory coverage came from the HKMA, MAS, the OECD and trade press, and CoinDesk Research on the Asia Pacific stablecoin landscape. The survey figures are as stated by Visa, which sponsors the study and sells a competing stablecoin platform. Market data is from independent sources and dated where cited. TechRecast has not independently verified the survey. This article is not investment advice.