Jeremy Allaire said stablecoin adoption is accelerating across the global banking system, calling compound annual growth of around 40% a “reasonable baseline” as banks move from experimentation to production use.
Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday in Davos, Switzerland, the Circle CEO said the industry has moved past debates about whether stablecoins belong in the financial system and is now focused on scaling real-world use.
Allaire said banks are no longer treating stablecoins as experimental crypto products, claiming Circle has been in discussions with “virtually every major bank in the world” about deploying stablecoins across payments, capital markets, and tokenized assets. He pointed to growing USDC volumes moving through major payment networks, including Visa and Mastercard, framing their involvement as additive rather than competitive.
“In the short, medium, and long term, everybody has to participate in the technology,” he said.
And while some policymakers and executives have floated scenarios in which stablecoins reach levels above $6 trillion within a few years, Allaire struck a more measured tone. He pointed out that while Circle’s USDC supply has grown roughly 80% year over year for two consecutive years, the company models longer-term growth closer to a 40% compound annual rate.
“That’s just built on the fact that there’s more and more utility,” he said, pointing to payments and settlement rather than speculative demand.
That outlook also aligns with data from ARK Invest. In its Big Ideas 2026 report released this week, ARK said rapid stablecoin adoption in emerging markets has already begun displacing other crypto use cases.
The firm cut its forecast for bitcoin’s “emerging-market safe-haven” adoption by roughly 80%, citing the growing role of dollar-backed stablecoins in everyday payments and savings.
Regulatory debates
The debate comes as lawmakers push to finalize a sweeping crypto market structure bill, which President Donald Trump said this week he hopes to sign “very soon.”
One of the most contentious issues pits banks against the crypto industry over stablecoin rewards. While the GENIUS Act bars issuers like Circle from paying direct interest to stablecoin holders, it does not explicitly prohibit third-party platforms from offering rewards — a loophole banking groups argue could pull deposits out of the traditional system.
Allaire said that distinction reflects how regulators broadly view stablecoins’ role in finance.
“These are cash payment instruments, that’s what they’re designed to be,” he said, adding that the disagreement is less about whether stablecoins should exist and more about how incentives are structured around them.
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