Daren Matsuoka

@darenmatsuoka

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832 Followers

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Paying for my Caltrain ride via the mobile app requires two separate credit card payments: $6 for the fare and $5.50 for parking. This means they are likely losing over 8% (!) in transaction fees. How much could be saved by using stablecoins?

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You can also read the full post here: https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/5-charts-explain-crypto/

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None of the above should be taken as investment advice or an advertisement for investment services; please see https://a16z.com/disclosures/ for more information.

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I talked about these metrics on the podcast, you can check that episode here: https://x.com/a16zcrypto/status/1936067068300050523

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Here’s one more bonus metric I’ll be watching: the number of tokens with >$1M in monthly net revenue. As of June 2025, there are only 22 (source: Token Terminal). With the new regulatory environment and upcoming market structure legislation, the path is finally opening up for tokens to complete the economic loop. This should result in more projects accruing value directly to tokens in the form of revenue, leading to a much healthier token economy.

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5/ Total transaction fees (demand for blockspace): -43% 2025 average: $239M monthly transaction fees 2024 average: $439M monthly transaction fees Why it matters: The total amount of USD-denominated transaction fees shows the aggregate demand — that is, the real economic value — for blockspace on a given chain. However, this metric comes with lots of nuance, since most projects are explicitly trying to bring down fees for users. Which is why it’s important also to consider unit transaction costs — meaning the cost for a given amount of blockchain resources. Ideally, the overall demand (total transaction fees) grows, while gas fees (cost per unit of resources used) remain low. Relevant news: - Recently, we’ve seen lots of debates on X around the importance of this metric (and related metrics, like REV). Source: Dune (as of June 2025)

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4/ DEX to CEX spot trade volume: +51% 2025 average: 17% monthly DEX-to-CEX volume 2024 average: 11% monthly DEX-to-CEX volume Why it matters: As more people come onchain, we expect to see decentralized exchange (DEX) usage increase relative to their centralized-exchange counterparts (CEXs) when it comes to trading crypto. The increasing ratio highlights the overall development of the DeFi ecosystem. Relevant news: - Coinbase just announced native DEX trading directly from the Coinbase app, making thousands of new assets available to trade. Source: The Block (as of June 2025)

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3/ ETP net flows (Bitcoin and Ethereum): +28% June 2025: $45B total ETP net flows ($42B BTC, $3.4B ETH) End of 2024: $35B total ETP net flows ($33B BTC, $2.4B ETH) Why it matters: Institutional capital entering crypto is a sign of the industry’s overall maturity. As regulations become more clear and the key distributors start to activate, net flows into the ETPs should continue to grow. Relevant news: - The SEC recently requested spot Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuers to update their S-1 filings, suggesting that approval could occur sometime in the near future. Source: Dune, hildobby (as of June 2025)

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2/ Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume: +49% 2025 average: $702B monthly adjusted stablecoin volume 2024 average: $472B monthly adjusted stablecoin volume Why it matters: Stablecoins have found product market fit. We can now send dollars in less than 1 second, for less than 1 cent — making stablecoins a great product for payments. Big financial institutions are embracing this opportunity. Relevant news: - USDC issuer Circle went public on the New York Stock Exchange - Stripe acquired stablecoin infrastructure provider Bridge and announced a handful of new products - Coinbase released an agentic payments standard with support for stablecoin payments - Visa and Mastercard enhanced stablecoin support - Meta is reportedly in talks to introduce stablecoins as a means for payouts Source: Visa (as of June 2025)

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1/ Monthly mobile wallet users: +23% 2025 average: 34.4M monthly active mobile wallet users 2024 average: 27.9M monthly active mobile wallet users Why it matters: Wallet infrastructure has significantly improved — we have low transaction fees, new account abstraction protocols (EIP-7702), embedded wallet products (Privy, Turnkey, Dynamic), etc. Now is a better time than ever to build a next-generation mobile wallet. Relevant news: - This month Stripe acquired Privy — a leading wallet infrastructure provider. Source: a16z crypto (as of May 2025)

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The crypto industry is maturing. At the end of last year, we proposed 5 metrics to watch closely in 2025 to track the industry’s continued growth and development. Here’s what the data looks like halfway through the year. 👇

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Today, we've got a midyear market update and news episode for you. At the end of last year, our guest — and resident data weatherman — @darenmatsuoka put out a post on "5 metrics to watch in 2025." Most of the metrics that Daren picked measure how crypto's adoption: from mobile wallet usage and onchain transaction fees to volume across stablecoins, decentralized exchanges (or DEXs), and exchange traded-products. Now that we're about midway through 2025, it's a great time for an update. Check out the full episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3JlylTcgUTQspfpW4yrFjt?si=yWYMl3wfTvWf1tA8WXQIkA&nd=1&dlsi=b6323f2446b6446b

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Stablecoins have the potential to reshape eCommerce. - Micropayments unlock new markets - Programmable money enables new commerce models - Open rails make hard-to-reach regions accessible - AI agents can now participate in the economy

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You can check out my full post here: https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/stablecoins-data-users-onboarding/

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It’s no surprise that stablecoins are just now starting to pick up. Over the last several years, we’ve made significant progress on blockchain infrastructure. With new high-throughput L1s like Solana, and new Ethereum L2s like Base, we’ve finally been able to make stablecoins a good product for payments. Stablecoins are now the cheapest way to send a dollar – in less than 1 second for less than 1 cent. And if you compare that to the other options we have in the US, some of which are really clunky and costly, it’s easy to see why stablecoins make sense. This is a great example of how infrastructure improvements unlock new applications, and I’m excited to see what else might get unlocked.

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What makes me most excited about stablecoins is the fact that all this activity seems to be uncorrelated with broader crypto trading volume, which is a sign of organic use and product market fit. For a long time, stablecoins have been criticized for only being used to settle speculative crypto trades, but this data shows otherwise. If you look closely at the shape of these two graphs, you can see a viral loop with stablecoin activity that’s independent from trading. This might be my favorite chart to tell the stablecoin story today.

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Stablecoin supply is at an all-time high, and another great stat is that over 1% of the total US dollar supply is now tokenized as stablecoins. On the issuer side, it’s a two horse race between USDC and Tether. On the infrastructure side, Ethereum and Tron continue to dominate. But if you zoom into the recent months, we are seeing some notable growth on chains like Solana, Arbitrum, and Base.

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A result of all this stablecoin growth is $128 billion of U.S. treasuries held by stablecoins. That makes them a top 20 holder of US debt, ahead of entire countries like Saudi Arabia, South Korea, UAE, and Germany. And this has all happened in only a decade. Citi bank recently projected that by 2030, stablecoins could reach $3.7 trillion in treasuries making it the largest holder at the top of this list.

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Stablecoins now present what I believe is the first credible opportunity to onboard a billion people into crypto. If you haven’t checked in on the latest stablecoin data recently, you might be surprised. Stablecoins have done $33 trillion in transaction volume in the last 12 months, consistently hitting new all time highs. To put that into perspective, that’s close to 20 times the volume of PayPal, close to 3 times the volume of Visa, and quickly approaching the volume of ACH. It’s incredible to see stablecoins in the mix among these massive global payment networks that have been around for decades.

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@stavros, Greg, and Jared are industry veterans with more than 50 years of combined experience in the gaming industry. They've shipped software at scale to billions of users, including Call of Duty multiplayer, and previously held roles at EA, Razer, Facebook, and Coinbase.

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