02-19-2026 
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Stablecoins may be an increasingly popular choice for everyday payments, but they can’t shake their associations with bad actors and the bad acts they enable.
- BVNK survey says desire to spend stablecoins exceeds the ability to spend
- Bhutan’s crypto payment project finding few takers
- Human trafficking report finds stablecoins popular with pimps
- Binance denies looking the other way on sanctions evasion
- A7A5 frontman says nothing illegal about sanctions evasion
A new YouGov survey commissioned by the U.K.-based electronic money institution (EMI) BVNK examines how stablecoin holders intend to use their tokens, compared with the actual use cases available to them. All respondents either held/had held stablecoins over the past 12 months or planned to acquire stablecoins over the next 12 months, so this is something of a ‘querying the choir’ situation. With that qualifier, let’s tuck in.
Some 42% of stablecoin holders want to use them for ‘major purchases,’ but only 28% currently do. BVNK co-founder/chief business officer Chris Harmse says the “desire to spend stablecoins far exceeds actual spending across every category we tested,” suggesting that “the infrastructure isn’t the problem anymore. It’s acceptance and integration.”
The survey was conducted last September/October and queried 4,658 adults across 15 countries (a mix of developed and emerging markets). Higher rates of stablecoin ownership were noted in low- and middle-income economies (60%) than in high-income markets (45%). However, holders in high-income economies held larger amounts (~$1,000) than the global average (under $200).
Similarly, holders in low-/middle-income markets say they’re more likely (60%) to acquire more stablecoins over the next 12 months than their high-income counterparts (48%). Stablecoins also accounted for a higher percentage of individuals’ total savings in low- and middle-income economies (36%) than in high-income economies (29%).
Centralized exchanges are the most popular method (34%) for acquiring stablecoins, ahead of crypto wallet apps (28%) and crypto brokers (17%). Similarly, exchanges are most popular for managing one’s stablecoins, cited by an average of 46% of respondents across all markets. Payment apps with crypto features ranked second (40%), narrowly beating mobile crypto wallet apps (39%), followed by banking provider/fintech apps (23%) and hardware wallets (13%).
However, 77% of respondents said they’d likely open a stablecoin wallet within a banking/fintech app if the app made that possible. This option was far higher in low-/middle-income economies (83%) than high-income (67%). African nations ranked highest here with 91%.
Low-/middle-income market users are more likely (32%) to spend/convert their stablecoins within days of receiving them than high-income users (20%). The highest movement rates were reported in South Asia (45%), Latin America (32%), Africa and Asia-Pacific (tied at 27%), and Southeast Asia (26%), with much lower rates in North America (19%) and Europe (17%).
Unsurprisingly, interest in using linked debit cards to spend stablecoins is higher in low-/middle-income markets (78%) than in high-income (60%). Card interest is highest in Africa (89%) and South Asia (80%).
Among individual nations, holders’ desire to use stablecoins for spending is highest in Nigeria (96%), India and South Africa (tied at 88%), Mexico (87%), and Australia (86%). The latter is a bit of a surprise, given that most other high-income economies rank near the bottom of this chart, with the three lowest being the U.S. (69%), Germany (65%), and the U.K. (57%).
Just over half (52%) of respondents said they had bought something specifically because the merchant accepted stablecoins. This was far higher in low-/middle-income economies (60%) than high-income (42%).
Over three-quarters (77%) of those surveyed would be interested in getting paid in fiat-backed tokens, with interest highest in Africa (95%), APAC (87%), and South Asia (83%). Here again, interest was lowest in North America (63%) and the European Union (60%).
Lower transaction fees were the most popular (30%) reason for why someone might use stablecoins for payments, followed by better security (28%) and the ability to use them internationally (27%). BVNK claims that those who receive stablecoin payments/remittances generally save 40% on fees over other methods.
For those who noticed a difference when paying with stablecoins compared to other methods, speed and convenience (26%) were flagged as the key benefits. Meanwhile, stablecoin payers cited the inability to reverse payments and the corresponding risk of losing their funds as their top annoyance (30%), followed by the over-complexity of stablecoin transactions (22%) and the need to use a specific stablecoin or network (20%).
BVNK’s Harmse claims these problems are “design failures that industry can fix.” Ultimately, users don’t care about decentralization or innovation; they just want stablecoin payments to perform as reliably as existing payment rails.
Bhutan crypto payments proving hard sell with tourists
While BVNK’s data paints a rosy picture of stablecoin payments, McKinsey analysts recently found that most stablecoin transactions don’t involve end-user payments. Instead, stablecoin volume consists “mainly of trading, internal shuffling of funds, and automated blockchain activity.”
And while BVNK focused on stablecoin aficionados, the situation looks a lot less rosy when it comes to convincing neophytes to give blockchain-based payments a try. For instance, a new report says Bhutan’s blockchain payment system is nearly a year old, but merchants are having a hard time convincing anyone to use it.
The partnership between Digital Kidu (DK) Bank and the Binance exchange enables both local residents and international tourists to pay for goods and services in over 100 digital currencies, not just stablecoins. The system, which runs on the Binance Pay network, has signed up over 1,000 merchants, ensuring widespread coverage in tourist-friendly regions of the country.
But one merchant in these regions claimed that no customer had used the system to date. A co-founder of a Bhutan-based AI startup said the government had mused about widening access to crypto payments, but he hadn’t “seen this happen in any significant way … tourism is the only sector where this conversation is visible, and even there, adoption remains limited.”
Earlier reports suggested that Bhutan’s poor internet connectivity was limiting uptake of the new payment option. But regardless of connectivity, customers are reportedly content to pay with cash or cards as usual, even when merchants explain the digital asset option to them.
A similar scenario played out in El Salvador, which passed legislation declaring BTC to be legal tender in 2021, only to rescind this designation last year due to the lack of local uptake and concerns from international lenders.
Tourist disinterest isn’t Bhutan’s only crypto problem. A while back, Bhutan made global headlines with its plan to establish a ‘digital asset reserve’ to stockpile tokens generated by its block reward mining operations (which began in 2019). By 2024, Bhutan had amassed a BTC reserve of nearly 13,300 tokens, but this stack has now fallen to just 5,600 tokens as the government appears less certain of the wisdom of holding on to ‘digital gold’ after BTC’s fiat price nearly halved over the past five months.
Stablecoins aiding human trafficking
Slow adoption isn’t a problem for bad actors, who have embraced stablecoins in a major way. The 2026 Crypto Crime Report from blockchain analysts Chainalysis found that stablecoins accounted for 84% of all illicit transaction volume.
Last week, Chainalysis released a new report detailing last year’s 85% rise in crypto transaction volume to suspected human trafficking services in Southeast Asia. The transactions totaled “hundreds of millions of dollars,” and that’s just across “identified services.”Chainalysis says this transaction flow is “closely aligned with the growth of Southeast Asia–based scam compounds, online casinos and gambling sites, and Chinese-language money laundering (CMLN) and guarantee networks operating largely via Telegram, all of which form a rapidly expanding local illicit ecosystem with global reach and impact.”
The report divides the trafficking networks into four categories: prostitution networks, international escort services, labor placement agents (for slave labor in scam compounds), and child sex abuse material (CSAM) vendors producing and disseminating such content.
Both the prostitution and escort services networks “operate almost exclusively using stablecoins” because these networks “prioritize payment stability and ease of conversion over the risks that these assets might be frozen by centralized issuers.”
The escort services are “tightly integrated” with CMLN networks that “rapidly facilitate the conversion of USD stablecoins into local currencies, potentially blunting concerns that assets held in stablecoins might be frozen.”
The escort services are also tied to so-called ‘guarantee’ marketplaces, like the now-defunct Huione Guarantee, which has since been supplanted by copycat sites that offer services to the compounds running ‘pig-butchering’ scams. In 2024, a research paper claimed USDT, the U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Tether, was responsible for 84% of transaction volume tied to pig butchering scams.
Chainalysis reports that Telegram is the primary means of communication and coordination by those participating in the escort/prostitution networks. Last November, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) reported that Telegram also plays a key role in dealings with ‘crypto-to-cash’ retail outlets with shoddy anti-money laundering/know-your-customer policies.
Among the ‘key risk indicators’ Chainalysis believes authorities should monitor to help identify trafficking networks are ‘regular stablecoin conversion patterns’ and ‘connections to Telegram-based recruitment channels.’
Binance denies looking other way on Iran sanctions-evasion
Stablecoins have also proven extremely popular with governments looking to evade Western economic sanctions. Here again, Tether’s USDT plays a pivotal role, with everyone from Venezuela to Iran to Russian oligarchs having utilized the token to move money in the shadows.
On February 13, Fortune reported that the Binance exchange fired “at least five” members of its compliance team late last year after these investigators “uncovered evidence that entities tied to Iran had received more than $1 billion through the exchange from March 2024 through August 2025, in potential violation of sanctions laws.”
Fortune added that the transactions in question were “routed through Binance using the stablecoin Tether on a blockchain known as Tron.”
Binance was required to onboard transaction monitors following the company’s $4.3 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice in November 2023 for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. Fortune claimed that some of the turfed investigators “were in charge of special and global financial investigations, including those related to sanction evasions and counter-terror financing.”
Reaction from Binance was swift, including tweets from founder Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, co-founder Yi He, and current CEO Richard Teng. Fortune writer Leo Schwartz acknowledged the tweets but noted that the authors “haven’t disputed anything from the article.”
Binance later issued a ‘request for correction and clarification’ that claimed (a) “no investigators were terminated for reporting potential sanctions concerns,” (b) an internal review “found NO sanctions breaches,” and (c) Binance “continues to fully cooperate in fulfilling its monitorship and regulatory commitments.”
Neither Tether nor its CEO, Paolo Ardoino, has yet offered any public response to the Fortune report.
A couple of days after Fortune’s report, the Jerusalem Post quoted Snir Levi, CEO of blockchain analysts Nominis, saying Iran was using cryptocurrency to sell its oil to Russia and China. Levi claimed the funds are then laundered through other nations before being sent to Iranian proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen.
Levi estimated that the value of Iranian digital assets flowing in and out of Gaza “has exceeded $100 million” in the past year. Levi said, “That’s a huge amount compared to the usual economy of Gaza,” and claimed the majority of tokens reaching Gaza were coming via Binance.
From Russia, with sanctions
Despite Tether’s popularity among the wrong people, the Russian state has a new homegrown stablecoin that’s taking on a more prominent role in the government’s clandestine cross-border money transfers. The ruble-backed A7A5 has emerged as a viable alternative to USDT, accounting for half of 2025’s sanctions-related illicit volume (according to TRM Labs’ latest Crypto Crime Report).
A7A5’s Kyrgyzstan-based issuer is partially owned by Russian state-owned bank Promsvyazbank, meaning none of its tokens are likely to be frozen on-chain if they’re flagged by sanctions watchdogs. Last year, the EU imposed sanctions on a variety of entities linked to A7A5, and another set of EU sanctions is under consideration that would target any/all digital asset transactions with Russia-based entities. Ukrainian authorities imposed their own sanctions on A7A5 entities earlier this month.
During this month’s Consensus Hong Kong event, A7A5’s director of international development, Oleg Ogienko, told CoinDesk that “we do not do illegal things.” However, that statement comes with a rather large asterisk, in that A7A5 operates under the laws of Kyrgyzstan and Russia, neither of which recognizes Western sanctions as legitimate.
Ogienko claims demand for A7A5 is highest among businesses in Asia, Africa, and South America that conduct cross-border trade with Russian companies. Ogienko hopes to one day “do more than 20% of Russia’s trade settlements with different countries in A7A5.”
But A7A5’s liquidity is thin, as most exchanges and protocols aren’t eager to attract additional regulatory scrutiny from American and European authorities by listing A7A5. Ogienko said he was in Hong Kong to address that liquidity issue, meeting with unspecified exchanges and blockchains “to do cooperation with them.”
Russia has plans for its own central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital ruble, which could find itself among the tokens targeted in the next round of EU sanctions. Timur Aitov, a member of Russia’s Chamber of Commerce and a key player in Russia’s digital currency initiatives, recently declared that, like A7A5, the digital ruble is “first and foremost an international project” because it “isn’t particularly in demand” among Russian citizens.
Russia’s central bank is now mulling the potential issue of its own stablecoin. Russian media quoted Bank of Russia first deputy chairman Vladimir Chistyukhin saying the institution will “conduct a study to reassess this situation.”
Chistyukhin said this reassessment of “the risks and prospects” of a Russia-approved ruble-backed stablecoin is required due to “the practices of a number of foreign countries.” Chistyukhin promised to “bring this up for public discussion” before any decisions are made.
Watch | Cut Costs & Streamline Payments: The Case for Stablecoins
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