The International Monetary Fund’s new working paper breaks empirical ground by mapping $2 trillion in global #stablecoin transactions during 2024 across five regions (US, Europe, APAC, MENA, LATAM) using a novel AI- and machine learning–based methodology.

By analyzing over 138 million on-chain transactions and nearly 6 million wallet domain names, the study reveals that while stablecoin volumes are highest in North America ($633bn) and Asia-Pacific ($519bn), their macroeconomic significance is greatest in Latin America (7.7% of GDP) and Africa (6.7%).

Crucially, the US emerges as the dominant net exporter of stablecoins ($54bn net outflows), with flows intensifying during periods of dollar strength, suggesting that stablecoins now serve as an agile instrument for meeting global dollar demand, akin to #Eurodollars but operating at #blockchain speed.

The March 2023 US banking crisis, triggered by the collapse of several regional banks servicing #crypto firms significantly disrupted stablecoin flows originating from North America, as evidenced by a sharp decline in on-chain transaction volumes during the crisis period.

Methodologically, the paper also challenges existing datasets, showing that their reliance on web traffic and VPN-free assumptions underestimates stablecoin use in regions like China by a factor of 5.5.

Instead, the IMF’s region-classification model (trained on 350,000 wallets) captures behavioral and time-zone-specific transaction patterns, offering a more robust lens into crypto capital flows.