Trust the Rails: Why Stablecoins Just Overtook Visa—and What Comes Next

In crypto, every few years, a new narrative tries to dethrone Bitcoin. NFTs, DeFi, GameFi—they rise fast and burn out just as quickly. But one category has quietly outrun them all: stablecoins.

Long dismissed as dollar-pegged placeholders, these tokens are now carrying more weekly transaction volume than Visa. That’s not a typo. According to investor Chamath Palihapitiya, stablecoins moved $464 billion in a single week (compared to Visa’s $319 billion in the same timeframe). 

Bitcoin may be crypto’s origin story. But stablecoins, it seems, are becoming its business case.

Stablecoins are the second killer app in the crypto ecosystem, besides Bitcoin,

Chamath tweeted this week.

And for 2025? He’s doubling down:

I think the biggest business winner of 2025 will be dollar-denominated stablecoins.

The Breakout Year

On the first episode of All-In this year, Chamath explained why: 2024 marked a decoupling moment. While most of the crypto market remained tied to volatility and speculation, stablecoin usage surged—up and to the right. No hype cycles. Just steady growth.

Chamath cited two key data points:

• 1.1 billion transactions in Q2 2024.
• $8.5 trillion in volume—more than double Visa’s in the same period.

And that’s just the start. 

We’re going to attack the Visa-Mastercard duopoly. Stablecoins could quadruple or quintuple by the end of 2025,

he said.

The appeal? 

• Low cost, 
• High efficiency, 
• And—most importantly—a path to detach payments from gatekeeping platforms. 

With transaction fees still crushing small businesses and independent creators, stablecoins offer a radically cheaper rail.

Just removing 300 basis points of drag from the economy, – Chamath argued, – could free up a trillion dollars in the U.S. alone.

A Political Rail, Too

Not everyone reacting to Chamath’s tweet is a VC or policy wonk. For Jonnie King, a former DJ turned full-time crypto trader, the stablecoin boom is personal—and political.

Crypto is how I save my wealth, – King told TIME earlier this year. – If [the Democrats] are trying to attack that, that's literally taking my money away from me. How am I supposed to support my family?

King responded to Chamath’s tweet by reposting his own March commentary on the White House Digital Asset Summit, where U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent laid out a shockingly bullish digital asset agenda under President Trump.

Highlights included:

• Creating a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve of 200,000 BTC
• Positioning the U.S. as a leader in digital assets
• Using stablecoins to strengthen the dollar’s global dominance
• Redirecting stablecoin reserve demand into the U.S. Treasuries

This is how we’ll keep the dollar dominant,

Bessent reportedly said.

And King agreed: “Stablecoins are introducing the golden age to America.”

His reasoning? Stablecoin issuers hold large U.S. Treasury reserves. That demand supports bond prices, lowers yields, and in turn reduces the government’s borrowing costs. 

I can’t begin to tell you how bullish this is for our country. The Golden Age of America is upon us,

King wrote.

The Real Killer App?

For years, crypto skeptics have asked: What’s the real use case? Speculation? Gambling? JPEGs?

Now, a new answer is emerging—and it’s deadly boring: payments infrastructure.

Stablecoins aren’t sexy. But they’re working. Quietly. At scale. With global reach. And unlike many other crypto innovations, they’re not trying to kill the system—they’re trying to plug into it.

If Chamath is right, 2025 won’t be the year we moon. It’ll be the year the back-end gets rebuilt. One transaction at a time.