When major banks publish research on the same technology, you’d expect some alignment. But recent reports from Citigroup and Standard Chartered paint sharply different pictures of who is actually using stablecoins — and why.

Citi’s Lens: Stablecoins as an Institutional Efficiency Play

In Citi’s framing, stablecoins are largely an interim step toward something bigger: bank-issued tokens.

Their thesis imagines a future where corporate treasurers favor assets issued directly by regulated banks, because these integrate cleanly with existing financial infrastructure and compliance frameworks. In this world, stablecoins are useful, but ultimately bank tokens dominate by the end of the decade as businesses migrate to systems they already trust.

Standard Chartered’s Lens: Stablecoins as an Escape Valve

Standard Chartered’s research arrives at the opposite conclusion.

Instead of compliance-driven adoption, they see stablecoins gaining traction in emerging markets because users are trying to exit their local banking systems altogether. Stablecoins function as a sort of offshore USD bank account, accessible to anyone with a smartphone.

Their estimate is bold: by 2028, as much as $1 trillion could move from emerging-market banking deposits into stablecoins — not as a bridge to another system, but as the destination itself.

Two Models, Two Worlds

The divergence comes down to the type of user each bank is analyzing:

1. The Institutional Thesis (Citi)

• Stablecoins = temporary infrastructure

• Bank tokens = long-run winner

• By 2030, regulated bank-issued tokens exceed stablecoins in transaction volume

• Adoption driven by corporate payments, B2B settlement, regulatory certainty

2. The Emerging-Market Reality (Standard Chartered)

• Stablecoins = the product, not the bridge

• Up to $1 trillion could leave local banks for stablecoins

• Two-thirds of existing stablecoin supply is held simply as savings

• Adoption driven by individuals seeking USD stability, not compliance

Is This a True Contradiction?

Not really. It’s a familiar pattern in technology adoption: the same product solves different problems in different markets.

In developed economies, mobile phones replaced landlines.

In many emerging economies, mobile phones became the internet itself.

Stablecoins appear to be following the same trajectory.

• In the “West,” institutions view them as infrastructural upgrades.

• In emerging markets, individuals see them as lifelines — a more stable store of value than their local currency or banks.

A Technology With Two Futures

The story isn’t about which bank is “right.”

It’s about how a single financial instrument can evolve along two paths simultaneously:

• Upmarket, toward regulated interoperability for global corporations.

• Downmarket, toward accessible digital dollars for billions of individuals.

Stablecoins aren’t choosing one or the other.

They’re scaling by serving whichever need arrives first.