China P2P stablecoin wallets grew 43x despite crypto restrictions: Chainalysis

Chainalysis found a sharp increase in peer-to-peer stablecoin use in China, reporting that the number of unique wallets initiating P2P stablecoin transfers expanded 43-fold from the first quarter of 2024 through the second quarter of 2026. Over the 12-month reporting window that ran from July 2025 to June 2026, the analytics firm recorded $104.1 billion in transfers across 18.1 million transactions tied to Chinas self-custodied stablecoin holdings.

The firm said stablecoin balances in China turned over 33.2 times per year, more than three times the global average of 9.3, which Chainalysis interpreted as consistent with users employing stablecoins as working capital rather than long-term stores of value. Domestic peer-to-peer transfers made up 59.1% of Chinas crypto activity in the reporting period, a share 3.5 times larger than in the prior year.

Chainalysis estimated the overall Chinese crypto economy at a minimum of $176 billion. The report flagged March 2026 as the largest monthly increase in domestic stablecoin transfer volume, adding $4.9 billion in that month alone. These on-chain trends persisted even as Chinese authorities tightened rules in February targeting unauthorized yuan-pegged stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets.

In a regional comparison, Chainalysis ranked South Korea as East Asias largest crypto economy at $449.1 billion, with activity up 12.3% and notable retail interest in AI-linked tokens. Hong Kong stood out for institutional flows, with institutional platforms accounting for 16% of service inflows and nearly $24 billion in inbound B2B flows; Hong Kong also issued its first stablecoin licenses in April. In Japan, decentralized exchanges made up about 35% of service activity, with 65.7% of DEX swaps between $10 and $1,000 and DEX activity having risen more than 200% since 2022; Japanese lawmakers moved in July to bring digital assets under the financial-markets framework.