Tether Effect: Stablecoin transaction volumes on Ethereum surpasses Venmo

A recent report from TradeBlock found that the total on-chain transfer volume across the largest stablecoins has surpassed Venmo's total payment volume in Q2 2019.

TradeBlock says stablecoin on-chain transaction volumes have soared in 2019.

With the controversy that has surrounded some of the biggest stablecoin issuers, the crypto community seemed to have lost its initial interest in the new asset class.

A recent report from blockchain analytics company TradeBlock suggested that not only did the interest in stablecoins rise over the past year, but their every-day usage also did as well.

The report, published on July 12, said that comparing on-chain transactional and notional volumes of stablecoins and traditional payment processors such as Venmo showed that the future was bright for crypto.

TradeBlock found that transfer volumes across stablecoin platforms rose in 2019, but the number of on-chain transactions across tracked stablecoins was still lower than that of Venmo.

The aggregate total on-chain transfer volume across the largest stablecoins has now surpassed Venmo's total payment volume.

The increase in on-chain transaction volume could be explained by the low fees involved in blockchain transactions.

Larry Cermak, the director of research at The Block, said that comparing ERC-20 stablecoins and payment processors such as Venmo was "Completely nonsensical." He believes that the reason on-chain stablecoin volume on Ethereum grew so much was only due to the addition of Tether.

The reason why on-chain ETH stablecoin volume grew so much is the addition of Tether.