Bank of Italy Study Challenges Stablecoin Cost Claims

A new study from the Bank of Italy is challenging the idea that stablecoins automatically make cross-border payments cheaper or faster. The central bank's researchers ran 200 transfers using USDC across ten payment corridors linking Italy to Brazil, Argentina, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, and South Africa. Their finding: the biggest cost driver isn't the blockchain fee. It is the fiat on-ramp and off-ramp.

Total costs for stablecoin transfers ranged from 0.3% to nearly 9% depending on the destination. The spread came almost entirely from currency conversion and local infrastructure, not from the digital dollar layer itself. Researchers said blockchain-related fees accounted for only a small slice of the total expense. That nuance matters for an industry that often pitches stablecoins as a friction-killer for international payments.

The study compared stablecoin costs against two benchmarks: the World Bank's global average of 6.65% for cross-border remittances, and the rates charged by Wise. On the World Bank measure, stablecoins often came in cheaper. Against Wise, the picture flipped. Stablecoins beat Wise in only three of the seven comparable corridors. The result suggests savings depend heavily on the specific market pair, not on the technology choice.

Speed followed the same pattern. When the receiving country had an instant payment system, stablecoin settlements cleared in under 20 minutes. In countries without that infrastructure, payments took one to two business days. The bottleneck was the national payment network, not the blockchain.