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APAC Wants Stablecoins. Does It Know What They Are?

46% of consumers in 14 APAC markets say they are likely to use stablecoins within five years. Only 6% show an accurate understanding of how they work.

Roland Cinco 3 min read

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Signal Spotlight · Stablecoins and payments in Asia-Pacific

What happened

On 5 October, Visa released findings from its Consumer 360 study, based on 14,250 people aged 18 to 65 across 14 markets, with fieldwork in June and July 2026. The markets include the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, India, Japan and Australia. According to crypto.news and Yahoo Finance, 46% said they were likely to use stablecoins within five years, and 49% thought stablecoins could become a common way to move money between countries. CoinDesk's headline puts the extrapolation at 1.2 billion consumers by 2031. We could not read the CoinDesk piece, and the other coverage we found does not give that figure or say how it was calculated, so treat it as CoinDesk's estimate, not Visa's headline.

What the survey found

Interest is well ahead of use. Only 16% said they had used stablecoins in the past 12 months. Visa did not say what those users did with them, so that figure may include trading as well as payments. Visa itself says interest has moved "well ahead of actual use".

Understanding is low. Only 6% showed what Visa calls an "accurate understanding" of how stablecoins work. The coverage does not explain how this was measured. According to the same coverage, 41% wrongly believed a stablecoin's value always rises, and 49% wrongly believed stablecoins are only for trading other crypto.

Awareness is high but uneven. About 66% had heard of stablecoins, led by Hong Kong at 84%, India at 80% and Thailand at 77%. Intent to use was 67% in India and Vietnam, and 34% in Japan, the lowest of the markets listed in the coverage we found. We did not find a Philippines figure in the coverage.

Barriers and trust. Among people who knew of stablecoins but had not used them, 38% cited fraud or scam concerns and 36% cited a lack of understanding. They preferred government or central-bank-linked providers (27%) and banks or regulated financial institutions (26%). Interest was strongest for online purchases, travel, overseas shopping and cross-border transfers.

Why it matters

The signal is that stated demand and actual capability are far apart. A survey of what people say they might do is not a forecast of transaction volume. The 6% figure and the misconceptions behind it point to the practical cost of a launch: explaining the product, building trust, and handling confusion at the point of use.

Visa also has a commercial interest. It sells stablecoin infrastructure and payment services, and Yahoo Finance notes the survey came days after a Visa-led consortium launched a stablecoin called OUSD. That does not make the data wrong, but it is context for how it is framed.

It is likely that survey numbers like this will be used in discussions with regulators. That is our reading, not something we found evidence of yet. If it happens, the useful response is to read the whole survey, including the comprehension and trust findings, not only the headline.

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  1. 1.2 billion APAC stablecoin adopters by 2031: real or marketing?Visa's survey of 14,250 APAC consumers projecting nearly half open to stablecoin use by 2031 is a directional market signal worth noting, but the detail that only 6% currently understand how stablecoins work is the operative number for operators planning near-term payment strategy. Demand intent without product literacy does not translate to transaction volume: it translates to onboarding friction and customer support load.…Market