Visa: Stablecoin settlement volume reaches an annualized $4.5 billion, but mainstream merchant acceptance remains limited

Visa's head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield, told Reuters that Visa is working to integrate stablecoins into existing payment systems to maintain its market leadership. Currently, stablecoin settlement volume has reached an annualized scale of $4.5 billion. Although this accounts for only a small portion of Visa's total payments of $14.2 trillion last year, the monthly growth is significant.
Sheffield pointed out that despite the stablecoin circulation exceeding $270 billion, mainstream merchant acceptance remains limited. Currently, there are no large-scale merchant networks accepting stablecoins. Visa has launched several stablecoin-related projects, including stablecoin payment cards, and started a pilot in December allowing some US banks to settle using Circle's USDC with Visa.