Stablecoins Become Core Market Plumbing In Moody’s 2026 Outlook
Moody’s said stablecoins and tokenized deposits are evolving into institutional “digital cash,” with trillions in onchain settlement volume and billions in infrastructure investment.
Stablecoins are shifting from a crypto native tool to a core piece of institutional market plumbing, according to a new cross-sector outlook report from Moody’s.
In the report, published Monday, the ratings agency said stablecoins processed about 87% more settlement volume in 2025 than the year before, reaching $9 trillion in activity based on industry estimates of onchain transactions, rather than purely bank‑to‑bank flows.
Moody’s said fiat‑backed stablecoins and tokenized deposits are evolving into “digital cash” for liquidity management, collateral movements and settlements across an increasingly tokenized financial system.
Moody’s placed stablecoins alongside tokenized bonds, funds and credit products as part of a broader convergence between traditional and digital finance.
Banks, asset managers and market infrastructure providers spent 2025 running pilots on blockchain settlement networks, tokenization platforms and digital custody, seeking to streamline issuance, post‑trade processes and intraday liquidity management.
The report estimated that, across these initiatives, more than $300 billion could be invested in digital finance and infrastructure by 2030 as firms build out the rails for large‑scale tokenization and programmable settlement.
Within that picture, stablecoins and tokenized deposits increasingly act as the settlement asset for cross‑border payments, repo (short-term secured loans where one party sells securities and agrees to buy them back later at a higher price) and collateral transfers.
Moody’s noted that regulated institutions used cash and US Treasury‑backed stablecoins in 2025 to facilitate intraday movements between funds, credit pools and trading venues, with trials in banks such as Citigroup and Société Générale, among others.
JPM Coin is cited as an example of a deposit token model that integrates programmable payments and liquidity management into existing banking infrastructure, illustrating how “digital cash” layers can sit on top of traditional core systems.
Source: CoinTelegraph
