Which Stablecoins Circulate Where, and Why
Token preference is regional and driven by what local venues quote, not by the merits of the issuers.
Rustam Khalilov · ·2 min
Which dollar stablecoin dominates in a given market has almost nothing to do with reserve quality and almost everything to do with local plumbing.
What actually drives preference
Which token local venues quote directly against local currency. A direct market means one spread; the absence of one means two.
That cost difference determines usage faster than any argument about issuers.
The network layer
Token preference and network preference travel together. Where a cheap network dominates locally, the tokens well supported on it dominate too.
A token that is liquid globally and awkward on the locally popular network loses to one that is not.
The merchant and remittance layer
Whatever recipients can convert is what senders send. Once a corridor settles on a token, it stays settled, because switching imposes a cost on both ends simultaneously.
This produces regional persistence that looks like preference and is really coordination.
Why reserve quality matters less than it should
Because holding periods here are short. A token held for an hour between receipt and conversion carries very little issuer exposure.
For anyone holding for months the calculation is different, and most regional usage is not that.
Where the data is thin
Volume by token by country. Reliable figures are scarce and the available proxies are weak, so I would describe direction rather than share.
The practical implication for a business
Do not argue about tokens with counterparties. Accept what they use, convert at your end, and keep the balance brief.
The one thing worth insisting on
A direct market between the token and your local currency at your venue. Without it you pay twice and see one number.
Ask which pairs are quoted directly. The answer is short and rarely volunteered.
What a regional operator needs
A venue quoting the tokens its counterparties actually use, in the currencies it actually settles in. A venue that supports several regional currencies removes conversions rather than adding them.
Exchanges with regional coverage tend to quote the pairs the region uses, and Collect & Exchange, which operates in several jurisdictions publishes which those are.