In a recent report, Visa highlighted that the global on-chain lending market is rapidly expanding, having reached $51.7 billion in monthly volume with over 81,000 active borrowers.
In a tweet, Visa Head of Crypto Cuy Sheffield echoes Visa Founder Dee Hock’s statement that the “real revolution is not in electronic money, it is in electronic trust,” while revealing Visa’s viewpoint that stablecoins and smart contracts could redefine the global lending ecosystem and enable new on-chain credit networks.
“At Visa, we believe that stablecoins and smart contracts have the potential to revolutionize the global lending ecosystem and enable new onchain credit networks,” Sheffield wrote.
Stablecoins play a crucial role in on-chain lending: they provide a dependable backbone for on-chain lending, offering fiat currency-denominated stability that lenders and borrowers can both utilize, combined with the flexibility and efficiency of programmable money.
On-chain lending helps ensure capital market efficiency, and it can create accessible credit markets available 24/7.
$670 billion stablecoin loans powered by smart contracts
Visa found that over the past five years, $670 billion of stablecoin-denominated loans have originated through smart contracts to over one million unique wallet addresses on protocols like Aave, Compound and Morpho. Visa carried out extensive research in collaboration with Allium on stablecoins USDC, USDT, PYUSD, FDUSD, USDP, USDG and Ripple USD (RLUSD) on EVM chains and Solana. Sheffield highlighted this report in his tweet.
In August 2025, more than $51.7 billion in stablecoins were borrowed by users. This adds up to a total volume of over $670 billion, if taken from January 2020. Stablecoin lending activity had begun to recover after recording a significant drop spanning from 2022 through early 2024 to reach new highs in recent months.