ECB Study: 5% of Euro Area Consumers Held Stablecoins in August 2025

The European Central Bank estimated that 5% of euro area consumers held stablecoins in August 2025, according to a box in its Economic Bulletin published on November 11. That was more than a third of consumers who held any crypto-assets.

The analysis draws on a topical module of the ECB Consumer Expectations Survey, which is experimental data, covering the August and November 2025 waves in the 11 largest euro area countries, population-weighted. Crypto-asset ownership rose from 9.8% in November 2024 to 13% in August 2025. The ECB gave 1,286 respondents for its crypto-composition chart and did not state a total sample size on the page.

Among consumers with crypto exposure, 63% held bitcoin and 36% ether. USDT was held by 17%, USDC by 12% and the euro stablecoin EURC by 10%, while other euro and non-euro stablecoins together were under 9%.

Holdings skewed toward small amounts, though close to 10% of stablecoin owners were estimated to hold 10,000 euros or more in November 2025. The survey does not directly measure how stablecoins are used. The ECB said they are mainly used for crypto trading. Foreign-born respondents were 2.1 percentage points more likely to hold stablecoins after controlling for other characteristics, which the ECB said is consistent with possible cross-border payments or remittances, though it called the evidence preliminary.

The data are therefore about 15 months old at publication.

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Sources:

• ECB Economic Bulletin: Who holds stablecoins? New evidence on euro area consumer holdings