Stablecoins Make Up 81% of OTC Crypto Trades

Finery Markets published a report titled “Stablecoins 2035” that finds stablecoins now represent 81% of over‑the‑counter (OTC) cryptocurrency trades. The firm reports OTC volumes increased roughly 94% year‑over‑year while centralized exchange volume fell 38% and decentralized exchange volume fell 13%. The findings are based on the firm’s electronic communications network trading data and interviews with ten industry participants.

The report states US dollar‑pegged tokens account for 99.87% of reported stablecoin volume. Euro‑pegged stablecoins posted a 32‑fold increase year‑over‑year. Total tokenized stock supply rose about 400% in a year to roughly $1.5 billion, the report adds.

Finery Markets conducted interviews with firms including Flow Traders, GSR, Keyrock, Chainberg, Fiat Republic, Dune, Fipto, Mercuryo, StraitsX and Hercle. The report describes five national approaches it expects by 2035: the United States exporting dollar tokens abroad; Europe and countries such as Brazil defending domestic currencies with rules that limit non‑euro tokens; China and India substituting private stablecoins with central bank digital currencies; financial centers including the UK, UAE and Singapore serving as neutral exchange channels; and jurisdictions such as Australia treating stablecoins under existing foreign‑exchange rules as equivalent to traditional dollars.

The report notes US dollar stablecoins sit on deep capital markets and established institutional workflows, making direct competition difficult. It suggests non‑USD stablecoins may gain use by addressing specific needs such as regulated settlement, tokenized securities and institutional collateral.

Looking beyond payments, the report projects that the same onchain rails could support up to $400 trillion of bonds, equities, commodities, real estate and private credit if liquidity and continuous markets are available. It states that trading and custody infrastructure for tokenized assets largely exists, while round‑the‑clock market depth provided by professional liquidity providers and market makers remains a primary constraint.

Sergey Klinkov, managing director at Finery Markets, wrote in the report: “In general, people are terrible at second‑guessing the future. If it were otherwise, the prediction markets business would fail. People often miss the big thing in plain sight. Even if they won the Nobel Prize.”

Finery Markets is described in the report as an institutional crypto ECN and trading‑SaaS provider offering non‑custodial infrastructure that aggregates liquidity across more than 200 crypto and fiat pairs. The report was published in collaboration with StablecoinInsider.