Bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoins pegged to the US dollar are becoming a global alternative for transferring value across borders without relying on banks and card networks, as the settlement volume on the Bitcoin network begins to match that of the world’s largest payment processors.
In the past 90 days, Bitcoin has processed $6.9 trillion in payments, which is reported to be “on par with or above Visa and Mastercard,” according to the fourth quarter of 2025 report from blockchain data platform Glassnode, released on Wednesday here.
During the same period, Visa handled $4.25 trillion in payment volume and Mastercard $2.63 trillion, totaling $6.88 trillion, as stated in the report.
“Activity is migrating off-chain as flows shift to #ETFs and brokers, but Bitcoin and #stablecoins continue to lead in on-chain settlement,” Glassnode noted on X.
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Bitcoin’s economic settlement remains minimal compared to cards
After adjusting for internal transfers between addresses owned by the same entity, Bitcoin’s “economic” settlement is estimated at approximately $870 billion per quarter, or about $7.8 billion daily, as per Glassnode’s analysis. The firm stated that these figures still highlight Bitcoin’s growth as a “globally significant settlement network, facilitating both institutional and retail transaction flows.”
This amount is dwarfed by Visa’s average daily transaction volume of $39.7 billion and Mastercard’s $26.2 billion, primarily used for consumer retail transactions and daily necessities.
In contrast, Bitcoin’s settlement volume mainly stems from trading, remittances, and store-of-value investments, as the adoption among global merchants remains low.
Globally, only 20,599 merchants are reported to accept Bitcoin payments according to BTCmap, compared to Visa’s 175 million merchant locations worldwide.
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Stablecoins transact $225 billion daily, but mainly through bots
Stablecoins are emerging as another efficient means for global value transfer due to their stable price, low fees, and 24/7 availability.
Currently, stablecoins are moving an average of $225 billion worth of value each day, based on the 30-day moving average of total transfer volume for the top five stablecoins as calculated by Glassnode.
However, approximately 70% of the $15.6 trillion in stablecoin transfers during Q3 of 2025 were connected to automated trading bots rather than organic movements.
Organic activity not associated with bots represented only about 20% of the total, while the rest (9%) was linked to internal smart contract transfers and internal exchange transactions, according to research from crypto exchange CEX.io.
The researchers emphasized that it is “essential” to differentiate between organic and bot activity for regulators to assess the systemic risks and genuine adoption of stablecoin payments.
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