Zodia Markets, the crypto trading firm majority-owned by British multinational banking giant Standard Chartered, handled $3.4 billion in Turkish lira stablecoin transactions in 2025, Reuters reported Tuesday.
That compares with $110.5 billion in dollar-pegged stablecoin transactions and only tens of millions in euro-pegged tokens, meaning lira stablecoin flow was about 3.1% of Zodia's dollar stablecoin flow even as it ranked second.
"Our second-largest currency in terms of stablecoins last year was not the euro or any G10 currency as one perhaps would've expected but rather the Turkish lira," said Nick Philpott, Zodia's co-founder and interim CEO.
- The numbers show how non-dollar stablecoin demand isn't necessarily coming from Europe, even as European banks prepare to launch euro-pegged tokens this year.
- Instead, demand may be stronger in markets where users want faster settlement or where traditional banking routes are slower, more expensive or less reliable.
Read also: ECB rejects softer rules for euro stablecoins as too risky
As Philpott explained, Zodia clients used a lira-pegged stablecoin as an alternative to sending lira through correspondent banking to the firm's bank account.
"The TRY stablecoins were simply faster to settle, far more reliable to settle, cheaper to settle, and we would liquidate them more or less immediately on receipt, or certainly each day," he said.
- CoinGecko data shows TRY stablecoin category lists about $10.8 million in combined market cap as of press time, led by Wrapped iTRY at about $7.7 million, followed by BiLira's TRYB at about $3 million.
- That is less than 0.005% of the roughly $264 billion combined supply reported by Tether and Circle for their dollar-pegged stablecoins.
More context: Standard Chartered takes over Zodia crypto custody business