What stablecoin market intelligence really tells us

What stablecoin market intelligence really tells us 

Ask Hannah Curtis, product lead for Crystal Foresight, what personality a stablecoin would have, and the joking reply is: 

“Maybe like the person in the meeting who says what somebody else already said, just louder and more fancy.” Outspoken, in other words. 

It’s a lighthearted question and answer to a serious topic. Stablecoin transaction volumes now reach into the trillions of dollars, and headlines celebrate that growth every week. New issuers launch, regulators write new frameworks, and institutions experiment with tokenized assets built on the same rails. 

But a bigger transaction count does not automatically mean genuine adoption. 

After more than eight years in blockchain intelligence, Hannah has learned to ask what the data is actually showing, not what it appears to show at first glance. 

In a recent interview, they shared how they separate real stablecoin usage from short-term incentives, why they think “stablecoin” is already a misnomer, and what compliance and market teams should track instead of headline numbers. 

Key points 

• Bigger transaction volumes don’t necessarily mean more people are actually using stablecoins. 

• Stablecoins extend existing financial concepts using blockchain technology, rather than replacing finance outright. 

• “Stablecoin” is becoming a misnomer: USDT, USDC, and RLUSD already serve different purposes, from peer-to-peer payments to DeFi infrastructure to payment rails. 

• Advertised yields on stablecoin products do not always match what depositors actually earn once fees are accounted for. 

• Crystal Foresight tracks mint and burn events, supply concentration, and counterparty behavior across 99% of the stablecoin market to separate genuine usage from incentive-driven activity. 

Are stablecoins actually revolutionary? 

Not in the way most people assume. Hannah sees stablecoins as an evolution of existing financial concepts, not an entirely new invention. 

As Hannah puts it, stablecoins are “using the technology of the blockchain to solve a lot of the problems that are already being solved.” In their view, it is less a new invention and more a reshuffling of an existing one, with some new capabilities layered on top. 

That shift changes the question worth asking: not whether stablecoins will replace traditional finance, but how blockchain changes the way familiar financial tools operate. 

Their perspective comes from building blockchain intelligence teams and products. That work has taken them from tracing money laundering and darknet marketplaces to legitimate market analysis. “I was getting my university degree in economics during the 2008 financial crash,” they say. “That’s what really drew me to blockchain, because it’s so transparent, you can actually analyze and see what’s happening.” That same instinct carries into stablecoin markets today. “The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know,” they say, which is part of why they keep testing assumptions rather than accepting numbers at face value. 

How does blockchain intelligence turn transactions into a story? 

At both ends of the scale. Hannah compares blockchain intelligence to solving a game of Sudoku: start with a handful of facts, then apply logic to figure out what you don’t already know. 

Viewed individually, a single transaction can tell you a great deal: who moved funds, how much, and where they went next. Viewed collectively, thousands of those transactions reveal how markets evolve and how people actually behave. Both scales matter, in Hannah’s view. 

Part of that picture is supply concentration: how many holders make up the bulk of a stablecoin’s supply, and how that shifts over time. Crystal Foresight combines mint and burn tracking with full transaction histories and counterparty analysis across 99% of the stablecoin market, giving teams a complete view of how an asset is actually being used. 

Why don’t headline numbers tell the whole story? 

Because large transaction volumes do not automatically mean the money is doing something new. Trillions of dollars can move through stablecoins without reflecting real payment activity or lasting economic use. 

In Hannah’s day-to-day work, one pattern shows up again and again: incentive programs, not organic demand, are driving a meaningful share of current activity. Issuers often advertise attractive yields, such as seven percent, to draw in depositors. “It’s important to look at what people are really earning versus what’s being advertised, where the money is coming from, and who’s taking a cut of the fees,” Hannah explains. 

“We often only stop at headline numbers,” they say, “but when you look deeper, you get a much better picture of what’s really happening, and who’s really benefiting.” 

Spotting that difference requires visibility into mint and burn events, lending flows, and fee structures, exactly the kind of pattern detection built into Crystal Foresight. 

Why does Hannah call stablecoin a misnomer? 

To Hannah, lumping every stablecoin into one category no longer makes sense. “I don’t look at stablecoins as one product anymore,” Hannah says. “It’s actually a misnomer to lump these all together.” 

Three examples show why: USDT functions largely as peer-to-peer money, USDC operates as decentralized finance infrastructure, the collateral underneath DeFi protocols, and RLUSD is built around payment rails, aimed at broader, more efficient payments. 

Hannah expects this fragmentation to deepen as adoption grows. Understanding those differences is becoming essential for financial institutions, institutional investors, and regulators alike. 

Hannah also tracks cross-chain liquidity, watching which platforms, such as OKX, Kraken, and Robinhood, are driving adoption of coins like USDG. That visibility is what lets Crystal Foresight help teams act with confidence, instead of treating every stablecoin the same way. 

What comes next for the stablecoin market? 

A shift away from incentives and toward real-world utility, but only after a rockier patch first. Hannah believes current stablecoin adoption is thinner than the headline numbers suggest. “The actual day-to-day use cases are much thinner,” they say, than the billions or trillions of volume often quoted online. 

Their expectation follows a familiar hype-cycle path: enthusiasm, a trough of disillusionment as thinner-than-advertised usage becomes clear, then organic adoption built around products that solve genuine problems. 

A widening blast radius 

Hannah draws a sharp line between different kinds of collapse. The 2008 financial crisis was a failure of traditional finance. Crypto-specific collapses, including FTX, have so far been serious but largely contained to participants who understood the risk. What concerns them is how that blast radius is widening as stablecoins reach pension funds and everyday users who simply trust the system. “It’s easier to track because it’s all transparent on chain, but you do have to be watching for it.” 

Tokenized real-world assets: the next frontier 

Hannah also points to tokenized real-world assets as the frontier they’re watching most closely: bringing real-world value on chain, rather than value that just circulates within crypto. But to Hannah, it’s also the most dangerous: “that’s when it gets the most tricky and dangerous, because that’s when it gets more complex, and people’s real, tangible assets start to be put on the line.” Crystal Foresight is built around that same principle: treating transparency as a starting point, not a guarantee. 

Frequently asked questions 

Do large stablecoin transaction volumes prove genuine adoption? 

No. Large transaction volumes can reflect capital cycling through decentralized finance, and advertised yields don’t always match what depositors actually earn once fees are factored in. Hannah Curtis recommends checking mint and burn patterns before drawing conclusions from headline figures alone. 

Are stablecoins replacing traditional finance? 

Not exactly. Hannah Curtis views stablecoins as an evolution of existing financial concepts rebuilt using blockchain technology, rather than a replacement for traditional finance. The more useful question is how blockchain changes the way familiar financial tools operate. 

How can compliance and market teams separate real usage from incentive-driven activity? 

By looking beyond transaction volume to mint and burn events, supply concentration, and lending and fee flows. Crystal Foresight tracks these signals across 99% of the stablecoin market, giving teams the data needed to tell genuine adoption apart from short-term incentives. 

Could a stablecoin failure affect the wider economy? 

It’s a growing concern. Crypto-specific collapses have so far been largely contained to participants who understood the risk, but as stablecoins reach pension funds and everyday users who simply trust the system, Hannah Curtis sees the blast radius widening. 

What does blockchain transparency offer that legacy finance doesn’t? 

The ability to inspect transactions directly. Unlike many legacy financial systems, blockchain lets analysts, businesses, and newcomers investigate activity for themselves, rather than relying on assumptions. 

Conclusion 

Stablecoin headlines will keep growing louder as more issuers launch and institutions experiment with tokenized assets. Hannah Curtis’s message cuts through the noise: transaction volume alone does not prove adoption, “stablecoin” is already a misnomer for a market splitting into distinct products, and today’s incentive-driven growth is likely to give way to organic adoption. 

For financial institutions, institutional investors, and regulators, that means asking what the data actually shows: who is using these assets, why, and whether that usage is likely to last.