Stablecoin Market to Grow to Almost $3T in Next 5 Years: Bernstein

The stablecoin market is expected to grow to $2.8 trillion of tokenized digital currency in the next five years from $125 billion today, broker Bernstein said in a research report Wednesday.

Integration with consumer platforms will lead to a “growth flywheel” for stablecoins – a type of cryptocurrency pegged to another asset, such as the U.S. dollar – allowing them to capture users and grow distribution beyond crypto native platforms, the report said.

“We expect major global financial and consumer platforms to issue co-branded stablecoins to power value-exchange on their platforms,” analysts led by Gautam Chhugani wrote.

Just this week, payments giant PayPal (PYPL) said it was entering the crypto market with its own dollar-pegged stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD). This is a first for a major financial company. The Ethereum-based token will be available first on PayPal and then on Venmo, and can be exchanged for dollars at any time.

Stablecoins will be powered by a “hyper-fast financial settlement layer (layer 2 or centralized consumer platforms)” on public blockchains such as Ethereum, the note said.

Growth will be led by “regulated, onshore stablecoins.”

“Stablecoin regulation enjoys more political support than crypto regulation,” with multiple jurisdictions including Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, all launching pilot projects for stablecoins and CBDCs, the report added.