Stablecoin payments use cases worldwide, as perceived by central banks in 2022
Central banks believed in late 2022 that stablecoins were rarely used for payments outside of trading or DeFi, be it by consumers or by companies. This is according to a survey held at the end of that year, which asked central banks on what developments they noticed within their jurisdictions regarding CBDC or cryptocurrency. A new question in 2022 covered the use of stablecoins and cryptocurrency in day-to-day payments, excluding potential investments or use within Decentralized Finance (DeFi) such as NFTs. All central banks, regardless of geography, estimated that stablecoins are not used at all for payments. Only seven and eight percent of central banks indicated a use by so-called “niche groups” for domestic and cross-border wholesale payments. The respondents believed remittances were the most popular use case for stablecoins within cross-border payments, although they still thought only “niche groups” used this.