According to Mars Finance, Standard Chartered pushed back its forecast for the stablecoin market to reach $2 trillion from 2028 to 2030 in a report published Wednesday. Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital asset research, said it is maintaining its $2 trillion market-size estimate but believes the market will need an extra two years to get there. Stablecoin supply has remained in the $300 billion–$320 billion range over the past 12 months and currently stands at about $309 billion. Kendrick sees the slowdown as cyclical rather than structural, as it has occurred during a period of weak activity in crypto markets. He noted that despite the stagnation in supply growth, stablecoin use and transaction activity continue to rise. On-chain gross transfer volume hit a monthly record of $19 trillion in May, with the monthly average so far this year approaching $10 trillion, up from $4 trillion in 2025. The average monthly velocity—the number of times each dollar of stablecoins changes hands—has doubled this year to about 30, compared with 15 in 2025. USDT has held at around 7, while USDC has climbed from 45 to about 80. Kendrick said the difference reflects their distinct uses: USDT is primarily used for dollar savings in emerging markets, while USDC is used more for payments, financial transactions, and early-stage payments between AI agents. Kendrick expects competition to be fiercest in stablecoin payments and trading in developed markets. Potential challengers include Open USD, stablecoin infrastructure provider M^0, and the A+ network, which plans to let banks issue shared stablecoins while retaining the yield on their reserves.