1. Growing Appetite for Stablecoins Across Asia-Pacific
Consumers across the Asia-Pacific region are showing increasing interest in using stablecoins for everyday spending, travel and sending money abroad, according to new research from the payments company Visa. The findings suggest that digital tokens pegged to traditional currencies are moving from a niche tool for traders toward a possible mainstream payment option.
The survey found that 46% of respondents are likely to use stablecoins within the next five years. By comparison, only 16% said they had used them in the previous 12 months. The distance between those two numbers describes the opportunity facing payment providers: a large share of people say they are open to the idea, while actual usage remains far lower.
Visa's own framing of the result is that attitudes are shifting even though knowledge has not yet caught up. Nischint Sanghavi, head of digital currencies for Visa in the region, described a meaningful change in how consumers there view stablecoins, noting that people still know little about the technology but are increasingly curious about adopting it.
The distinction between intent and behavior deserves emphasis. Survey answers about future plans often overstate what people eventually do, because stating a willingness to try something costs nothing. The more useful signal is the direction of change: more people are considering stablecoins than are using them, and the people considering them are looking beyond trading toward ordinary financial tasks.
For an industry that has long been defined by speculation, that shift in framing is notable. Payments, travel spending and remittances are all activities in which cost, speed and reliability count for more than price appreciation, which suggests that stablecoins will be judged on practical grounds rather than on market excitement.
2. What the Survey Covered
The research drew on responses from 14,250 people in the Asia-Pacific region. Because it is a sample, the headline projection that nearly half of the region's consumers could be open to stablecoins by 2031 is an extrapolation from those answers and not a count of actual users. The region is home to about 2.5 billion consumers, which gives even modest shifts in preference a very large potential scale.
Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to hold a steady value, typically by being tied to a fiat currency such as the US dollar. Unlike more volatile cryptocurrencies, they are meant to be a stable store of value and a means of payment. They can move across blockchain networks at any hour, which is the quality that makes them appealing for transfers between countries.
The survey also asked about expectations for the technology. About 49% of respondents believe stablecoins could become a common way to move money across borders within five years, indicating that cross-border use is seen as a leading application alongside daily purchases and travel.
Cross-border transfers are a natural fit for the technology because traditional international payments can involve several banks, multiple currency conversions and delays of a day or more. A token that moves directly between wallets can shorten that chain, though the user still needs a convenient way to turn the token into local money at the receiving end.
3. A Large Gap Between Interest and Understanding
The most striking result may be how little people understand what they say they might use. Only 6% of respondents demonstrated an accurate understanding of how stablecoins work. Among those who were aware of stablecoins, 49% believed they could only be used to buy and sell other cryptocurrencies, a view that overlooks their use in payments and transfers.
That misconception matters for adoption. If many potential users regard stablecoins as a trading instrument for crypto markets, they are unlikely to think of them when paying for a meal, booking a trip or sending funds to relatives overseas. Closing that knowledge gap is therefore as much a marketing and education task as a technology one.
Visa also pointed to obstacles. Among people who knew about stablecoins but had not used them, fraud and scams were the most commonly cited barrier. Concern about losing money to deception is a familiar issue across digital finance, and it carries particular weight for a product that many people already associate with the risks of the crypto industry.
Education efforts will probably have to address both problems at once. Explaining what a stablecoin is does little if users remain unsure whether the service offering it is legitimate, while strong security promises will not help if people do not understand the product. Providers that combine plain explanations with visible protections against fraud are likely to find the audience more receptive.
The finding also carries a note of caution for those who read high interest figures as evidence of imminent mass adoption. Interest built on partial understanding can be fragile, and a single widely reported scam or failure can set back confidence across an entire category.
4. A Contested Market of 2.5 Billion People
Stablecoin issuers, banks and card networks are all competing for the Asia-Pacific region, which has about 2.5 billion middle-class consumers, according to the Asia Business Council. The region already leads the world in stablecoin flows and onchain activity, based on research from CoinDesk, so the new survey describes demand building in a place where the infrastructure is already active.
For card networks, the stakes are plain. Their business depends on being the layer through which money moves between consumers and merchants. If stablecoins become a common way to pay, networks that fail to connect to them risk being bypassed, whereas those that integrate stablecoins can keep their role as intermediaries and extend it to new types of value.
For banks and payment apps, similar logic applies. A trusted, familiar provider that can offer stablecoin features without exposing customers to technical complexity may be better placed to win users than a crypto-native service that requires people to manage wallets and keys on their own.
The regional context also explains why the question is being asked here first. Large populations, widespread mobile phone use and heavy flows of remittances and trade payments create strong practical reasons to look for faster and cheaper ways to move money. Those same conditions have encouraged many of the region's financial firms and technology companies to experiment with digital assets earlier than counterparts elsewhere.
5. What Visa Is Building
Visa has been broadening its stablecoin settlement network and says it intends to support a wider range of tokens and blockchains. Settlement is the process by which funds are finally transferred between parties after a payment is made, and doing it with stablecoins can allow transfers to run continuously instead of only during banking hours.
The company is working with Reap, a partner that is preparing stablecoins denominated in local currencies. These could include tokens tied to the Hong Kong dollar, the South Korean won and the Japanese yen, and they are intended to support foreign exchange settlement around the clock. Local-currency stablecoins could reduce the need to convert through the US dollar, which is an extra step in many cross-border payments today.
Taken together, the settlement work and the local-currency partnerships show Visa positioning itself behind the scenes of stablecoin payments, where it can provide scale, compliance processes and merchant acceptance.
The approach also reflects a wider pattern among established payment firms, which have generally chosen to work with stablecoins rather than compete against them. By treating tokens as another form of money that can be settled and accepted, they aim to keep consumers and merchants inside systems that already include fraud monitoring, dispute handling and regulatory compliance.
6. Turning Curiosity Into Trusted Habits
In his closing remarks, Sanghavi said consumers are beginning to see how stablecoins could fit into the way they already spend and move money. The challenge, he said, is to convert that curiosity into trusted and familiar payment experiences that work at scale. He added that the research confirms the direction Visa has taken.
That emphasis on familiarity is telling. Payment habits change slowly, and people tend to adopt new methods when they look and feel like the ones they already trust. If a stablecoin payment appears inside an existing card or app experience, the underlying technology matters less to the user than whether the transaction is fast, inexpensive and safe.
The survey does not predict that adoption will happen on its own. The distance between 46% saying they are likely to use stablecoins and 16% who already have, together with the 6% who understand them, shows that education, security and clear consumer protections will shape how far and how quickly the region moves.
Regulation will be a further factor in how quickly the picture changes. Rules on reserves, licensing and consumer protection differ from one jurisdiction to another, and the region contains many separate legal regimes. Clear and consistent frameworks would make it easier for large providers to offer stablecoin services at scale, and would likely do more to ease consumer concerns about scams than any awareness campaign alone.
For now, the survey is best read as a snapshot of sentiment rather than a forecast of volumes. It shows a receptive audience, a clear knowledge deficit and a set of concerns that providers know they must resolve. How effectively they respond will determine whether the stated openness of nearly half the region's consumers becomes routine use by the end of the decade.