Dollar Stablecoin Inflows Show No Detectable Drop After Capital Controls End

Estimated cross-border inflows of dollar stablecoins rose when governments introduced capital controls and showed no detectable decline after the restrictions ended, suggesting token use can persist beyond a policy change.

International Monetary Fund economist Marco Reuter examined Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) transfers across 188 countries from 2018 through 2025. The transactions totaled an estimated $21.4 trillion in gross flows. His working paper was published Oct. 2, followed by a discussion of the findings Oct. 31.

Across 217 instances of new capital flow measures, estimated cross-border inflows were about 4% higher in the month a measure began than in countries without a new measure in the surrounding months. The difference reached roughly 20% within six months. Those percentages describe the response to restrictions, while the $21.4 trillion figure covers gross flows across the full data set.

The largest response followed tighter controls on money leaving a country. Estimated stablecoin activity was roughly 30% higher within six months and remained near that level through month 12. The estimates showed no detectable decline after governments removed the restrictions.

A separate comparison examined 21 countries that entered currency crises from 2021 through 2025. During the first year, their combined estimated stablecoin holdings rose about $7.9 billion above the path of 86 matched economies. That difference was roughly 75% of the crisis countries’ estimated $10.4 billion in holdings before the crises.

Holdings and inflows measure different things. The crisis comparison concerns the estimated amount of stablecoins held, while the capital-controls comparison tracks gross transfers into countries. Neither measure, on its own, establishes how much money left a country through other channels.

A wallet’s location cannot be read directly from a blockchain transaction. Reuter estimated locations from blockchain behavior and exchange website audiences. The resulting inflow figures do not establish why users transferred tokens, whether they were avoiding restrictions or whether their activity affected domestic monetary policy.

Earlier research on stablecoins and capital restrictions found little response to restrictions using different data and policy comparisons. The differing results leave the broader effect of capital controls on stablecoin use unsettled, even as this study finds that the estimated increase did not fully reverse when restrictions ended.