Stripe Annual Report In-Depth Analysis: Why the Summer of Stablecoins Is Coming During the Crypto Winter?

In February 2026, the annual open letter jointly released by Stripe co-founders John and Patrick Collison provided a significant reference point for the crypto industry. Amid the broader crypto market undergoing deep corrections and Bitcoin prices nearing half of their all-time high—a so-called “crypto winter”—Stripe describes the stablecoin sector as experiencing a “Summer of Stablecoins.” This paradoxical statement is not just rhetoric but a structural judgment based on solid business data: stablecoins are increasingly decoupling from crypto asset prices and, as an independent payment infrastructure, are entering their own golden era.

Background and Timeline: From Infrastructure Pain Points to Strategic Depth

Stripe’s understanding of payment pain points stems from the founders’ early experiences. In 2007, Irish brothers Collison, then teenagers, discovered while running their first company, Auctomatic, that the hardest part wasn’t coding or finding customers, but receiving money from clients worldwide. This insight led to the creation of Stripe—aimed at transforming online payments from a complex, permissioned process into something as simple as calling an API.

Deep involvement in the stablecoin space began with a key acquisition in 2025. To build end-to-end stablecoin infrastructure, Stripe acquired the orchestration platform Bridge and Privy, supporting over 110 million programmable wallets. By early 2026, Stripe’s strategic pace accelerated: the company obtained a national bank trust charter from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), clearing regulatory hurdles for its stablecoin expansion; simultaneously, its blockchain Tempo, developed jointly with Paradigm and designed specifically for payments, entered testing networks, with institutions like Visa, Nubank, and Shopify participating. This timeline clearly illustrates Stripe’s evolution from a software service provider to a provider of foundational financial infrastructure.

Data and Structural Analysis: The Structural Shift Behind $400 Billion

Stripe’s annual disclosures reveal fundamental changes in the stablecoin sector. According to a McKinsey report and Stripe’s own data, stablecoin payment volume doubled in 2025, reaching approximately $400 billion. More notably, about 60% of this volume comes from business-to-business (B2B) transactions, rather than individual cross-border remittances or speculative trading.

This data challenges the stereotype that stablecoins are mainly used for “on/off ramps” or crypto trading. The rise of B2B scenarios indicates stablecoins are penetrating core commercial areas such as global supply chains and cross-border service settlements. Stripe’s platform alone saw total payment volume (TPV) reach $1.9 trillion in 2025, up 34% year-over-year—equivalent to 1.6% of global GDP and surpassing Australia’s annual GDP. The acquired Bridge platform’s transaction volume grew more than fourfold, further confirming this trend.

On a broader on-chain level, as of January 2026, the total market cap of stablecoins approached $300 billion. While this still accounts for a tiny fraction of the global payments market (McKinsey estimates about 0.02%), the growth trajectory and shifts in usage structure are more convincing indicators than static market cap figures.

Public Sentiment and Technical Realism: Collision of Optimism and Pragmatism

Market interpretations of Stripe’s annual letter generally fall into two camps.

The optimistic camp emphasizes the “paradigm shift” value of stablecoins. Venture capital firm a16z elaborates in its analysis why AI agents need stablecoins: AI agents behave more like enterprises than tourists, requiring long-term, programmable credit relationships with suppliers rather than instant retail settlements. The programmability, low costs, and global reach of stablecoins make them naturally suited for handling vast micro-payments and streaming payments between AI agents and platforms.

The pragmatic camp focuses on the challenges Stripe highlights. They warn that if AI agents become the primary executors of internet transactions, blockchain networks might need to support 1 billion transactions per second (TPS). Currently, top-performing public chains like Solana and ICP have daily TPS just over 1,000, with theoretical maximums far below 1 billion. Stripe cites the 2025 memecoin frenzy, which caused network congestion and fee spikes, as an example: even current transaction densities reveal blockchain fragility, and future AI-driven demand could exacerbate these issues.

Authenticity of the Narrative: From “Speculative Vehicles” to “Payment Tools”

For a long time, the crypto industry has faced a narrative dilemma of “seeking real-world adoption.” Stripe’s annual letter provides key evidence that stablecoins are increasingly decoupling from crypto asset prices.

Factually: in 2025, Bitcoin prices declined by about 50% from their highs, yet stablecoin payment volume doubled. This divergence strongly indicates that current growth is driven not by crypto speculation but by real economic payment needs.

From a perspective standpoint: Stripe sees stablecoins as becoming “a core component of global payment infrastructure.” While this view is from a stakeholder with vested interests, its logic is supported by the platform’s $1.9 trillion in transaction volume and coverage of 90% of Dow Jones Industrial Average companies.

From a speculative angle: the assertion that AI agents will require 1 billion TPS is based on the exponential growth of AI agents and their transaction frequency far exceeding human activity. Although AI agents are still in early stages, Stripe’s collaboration with OpenAI on developing “Agent-based Commercial Protocols” (ACP) indicates industry leaders are preparing for the next explosive phase.

Industry Impact Analysis

Stripe’s annual letter will influence the crypto industry on multiple levels:

First layer: Re-evaluation of blockchain performance standards. If AI-driven commerce is validated, the current narrative of “sufficient speed” for public chains will be challenged. Industry focus will shift from “supporting DeFi and gaming” to “supporting massive, real-time machine economies.” High TPS, low latency, and interoperability will become the new technological battleground.

Second layer: Deepening stablecoin application scenarios. The rising share of B2B payments will push stablecoins from “cross-border remittance tools” toward “enterprise working capital management platforms.” This will require issuers and wallet providers to offer more complex reconciliation, invoicing, and credit functions.

Third layer: Regulatory and compliance frameworks. Stripe’s trust charter signals that large payment firms are attempting to integrate stablecoin activities into existing financial regulations. Meanwhile, the U.S. GENIUS Act and the EU’s MiCA regulation have been implemented, providing a regulatory foundation for compliant stablecoins. This may accelerate industry segmentation: compliant stablecoins becoming the mainstream infrastructure, while fully anonymous crypto assets are marginalized.

Fourth layer: The undercurrent of sovereign currency competition. Notably, about 99% of stablecoin market share is dollar-pegged. Issuers hold significant U.S. Treasuries, ranking 17th globally in Treasury holdings. This means stablecoins are not only infrastructure but also extensions of dollar hegemony in the digital age. While regions like Asia explore local currency stablecoins, they face capital outflows and dollar competition pressures.

Multi-Scenario Evolution

Based on current information, three potential scenarios emerge:

Stripe’s annual letter acts as a prism, reflecting the core contradictions facing the crypto industry over the next five years: on one hand, the unstoppable penetration of stablecoins into B2B payments; on the other, the current blockchain tech’s limited capacity to handle future AI-driven transaction volumes. From “crypto winter” to “Summer of Stablecoins,” the change is not just in temperature but in the industry’s fundamental value base—shifting from speculation to serving the real economy and machine economy. For builders, the 10 billion TPS challenge posed by Stripe is both a warning and a clear roadmap for the next-generation value internet.