Visa published research showing that nearly half of consumers across Asia-Pacific plan to use stablecoins within five years, while 41% believe stablecoins always increase in value. The finding was shared by Cointelegraph on October 10, 2026, citing Visa's regional study.
The two numbers sit awkwardly together. One points to strong, near-term consumer intent across one of the world's largest payment markets. The other exposes a basic misunderstanding of what a stablecoin is supposed to do.
A dollar-pegged asset is not a growth bet
A stablecoin is designed to track a reference value, usually the US dollar, at a one-to-one rate. Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC are the two largest examples. The entire point is that one token stays worth about one dollar, through good markets and bad. Holding a stablecoin is closer to holding cash in a different wrapper than to holding Bitcoin or Ether.
The 41% figure flips that logic. If four in ten prospective users expect a stablecoin to appreciate the way a volatile asset does, they are buying the product for a reason it was never built to deliver. A USDC balance that stays at a dollar is working exactly as intended. A user who expected it to climb will read that flat line as failure, or worse, assume the token is broken.
That gap matters more in payments than in trading. Someone speculating on a token knows they can lose. Someone loading a stablecoin to spend or save may not realize they signed up for price stability rather than upside, and the disappointment lands at the moment they try to use it.
Asia-Pacific is where the volume is
Asia-Pacific covers some of the heaviest crypto-usage corridors on the planet, from remittance flows into the Philippines to retail trading across Vietnam and large exchange markets in South Korea. Visa operates payment rails across the entire region, which gives its consumer research a direct line to how people actually plan to pay.
Intent at this scale is the headline for issuers and card programs. If half the region expects to touch stablecoins within five years, the addressable base for stablecoin-linked spending is enormous. Stablecoins already underpin a growing slice of crypto card activity, where a user tops up in USDC or USDT and spends it through a Visa-network card at the point of sale.
The misunderstanding is the risk attached to that opportunity. A payments product sold into a market that misreads its core mechanic invites complaints, churn, and regulatory attention. Educating a user that a stablecoin holds rather than grows is cheaper before onboarding than after a support ticket.
The spending angle is where this gets practical
For anyone using or considering a crypto card, the Visa data is a useful reality check on how stablecoins behave in a wallet. A stablecoin balance is best thought of as spendable value that will not swing with the market, which is precisely why so many card programs route spending through USDC or USDT rather than through volatile tokens. You know roughly what a $500 balance will buy next week.
What a stablecoin does not do is earn you a return simply by sitting there. Any yield comes from a separate mechanism, such as a staking or lending program layered on top, and those carry their own counterparty risk. The token itself is flat by design. Users who want their on-card balance to grow are looking at cashback rewards or staking yield, not at the peg appreciating.
There is also a cost layer that the Visa headline does not touch. Even when a card settles in a dollar-pegged stablecoin, spending abroad can still incur a network conversion spread, and topping up on-chain can carry gas fees. The disclosed rate is rarely the full cost. A stable peg removes price volatility; it does not remove transaction friction.
Overview
Visa's Asia-Pacific research captures a market moving toward stablecoins faster than it understands them. Nearly half of consumers plan to use stablecoins within five years, a strong signal for issuers and card programs across the region. But 41% expect these tokens to rise in value, a misread of an asset built to hold a one-to-one peg. As of October 10, 2026, with Bitcoin at $82,656 and the broader market flat, the demand is clearly there. The open question is whether the education catches up before the first wave of confused users does.
