USD-pegged stablecoins have become the main trading pair on South Africa’s major crypto asset platforms, according to the South African Reserve Bank’s latest Financial Stability Review, published in November 2025. The Bank notes a structural shift since 2022, with stablecoins replacing Bitcoin and other volatile tokens as the preferred conduit for crypto trading.
Trading volumes in USD stablecoins such as USDT and USDC have surged from less than R4 billion in 2022 to almost R80 billion in the year to October 2025. A chart on page 39 of the report shows this growth spread across large exchanges including VALR, Luno and AltCoinTrader, with multiple USDT and USDC pairs against the rand and against each other. The SARB links the trend to lower price volatility compared with unbacked crypto assets.
Alongside dollar tokens, rand-pegged stablecoins like xZAR and ZARP are emerging as on-chain payment instruments, although from a very small base. Monthly on-chain transaction volumes in these rand tokens peaked above R250 million in late 2023, then fell sharply in 2024 before recovering during 2025, as shown in Figure 26 on page 39. The report expects usage to rise gradually as the payment use case develops.
The SARB also highlights the regulatory challenge. The Financial Stability Board’s 2023 global framework for crypto and global stablecoin arrangements was followed by a 2025 implementation review that rated South Africa as having no framework in place for global stablecoin arrangements and only partial regulation for crypto assets more broadly. This assessment covers both reporting requirements for crypto asset service providers and the scope of licensed activities.
In its broader risk map, the Bank classifies technology enabled financial innovation, including stablecoins, as a structural risk that can amplify capital flow volatility and complicate exchange control enforcement. At the same time, it is working with National Treasury on an updated framework for cross border crypto transactions and revisions to the 1961 Exchange Control Regulations to explicitly incorporate crypto assets.
For South Africa and for jurisdictions such as the euro area that are designing central bank digital currencies, the SARB’s analysis underlines how fast privately issued stablecoins can capture trading and payment flows. The key question for regulators will be how to integrate these tokens into existing financial rules while safeguarding monetary and financial stability.