How does the stablecoin float compare against the dollar money supply it is denominated in?
M2 is the Federal Reserve’s broad measure of the dollar money supply, and this page plots it against stablecoin supply on one time axis. It stands at $23.05T as of May 2026, growing +5.6% year over year, against stablecoin supply of $303.0B.
M2 is the Fed’s broadest common measure of dollar liquidity: currency in circulation plus checking, savings and money market deposits. Rapid M2 expansion has, over the same periods, coincided with growth in some digital-dollar instruments, including stablecoins. Notable episodes on the chart: the 2020–21 COVID-era surge, when M2 grew +26.8% year over year at its peak, the fastest expansion since the post-war demobilization; the 2022–23 contraction, the first since the 1930s, which coincided with the sharpest stablecoin supply drawdown on record, from about $180B to about $125B; and the resumed growth from mid-2024 as the Fed paused tightening. ECB Working Paper 3199 (Altavilla et al.)[1] discusses how stablecoin issuance interacts with monetary transmission; M2 is one of several aggregates that give that channel context. It is not a measure of stablecoin demand.
Each period below is described by the year-over-year growth its own window actually recorded. The stablecoin series plotted above reaches back further than M2’s growth rate does, because year-over-year growth needs twelve months of history before it has a first value.
Pandemic-era fiscal and monetary support drove the fastest money-supply expansion of the modern record. Total stablecoin supply grew from about $6B to about $180B over the same period.
M2 contracted outright, the first such contraction since the 1930s. Total stablecoin supply fell from about $180B to about $125B over the same window. Interest rates were rising across the period as well; the rates page covers that channel.
Year-over-year growth crossed back above zero. Stablecoin supply had already begun recovering from its trough before it did, so the recovery did not wait on the money supply.
Year-over-year growth has risen since this regime opened, from +2.5% to +5.6%, which the boundaries below place as expansive, above 5% year over year. Stablecoin supply stands at $303.0B. Whether the two are related is not something this page establishes.
The series. M2SL, the seasonally adjusted M2 money stock, published monthly by the US Federal Reserve in billions of dollars and shown here in trillions. Each monthly reading is carried forward across the days that follow it, so the line steps at each release rather than sloping between them.
Why this page is dated earlier than its neighbors. M2SL is monthly and publishes with a lag, so the most recent reading here is May 2026 while the daily series on the other macro pages run to within a few days of today. That is the release schedule rather than a stale feed.
Year-over-year growth. Each reading against the reading twelve months earlier. The first twelve months of the series therefore have no value, which is why the growth panel starts later than the level panel and why no figure is quoted for early 2020.
The growth labels. The reading beside the growth rate is placed by boundaries at 5% and 0% year-over-year. Those boundaries are Stablecoin Beat’s own: no external standard divides money-supply growth this way. A label states where the current reading falls in a range we have divided, not whether the level is desirable.
The 30-day change. Measured over 30 calendar days. On a series carried forward from monthly releases this reflects whether a release has landed within the window, not a daily trend.
The stablecoin series. Plotted from a daily supply series beginning Nov 2017, compiled on the same universe definition as the platform’s headline figure, so it can differ from the headline total by a fraction of a percent — two compilations of the same base concept, reconciled daily. The current-day supply figure shown as text above is the headline figure, not the chart series’ last value.
What this page does not prove. Co-movement between M2 and stablecoin supply is not causation, and the two differ by three orders of magnitude, so the comparison is one of shape and direction. Stablecoin supply responds to demand for dollar settlement and to yield; M2 responds to bank lending, fiscal flows and monetary policy.
Updated with each monthly M2SL release. See the methodology for data sources and coverage.
M2 is the Federal Reserve’s measure of broad money: physical currency, checking deposits, savings deposits, money market funds and small time deposits. It is the most widely tracked gauge of dollar liquidity in the economy.
Stablecoins are dollar-denominated instruments, so the size of the dollar money supply is the backdrop against which their own growth can be read. The comparison is one of scale and direction; it does not establish that one moves the other.
Not necessarily. The 2022–23 M2 contraction coincided with stablecoin supply compression; interest rates were rising over the same window, making T-bills more attractive, and the rates page covers that channel. M2 contraction is a signal to watch alongside rate data, not a direct cause.
M2SL is a monthly release and publishes with a lag, so the most recent reading here is May 2026 while the daily series on the other macro pages run to within a few days of today. That is the release schedule, not a stale feed.
Each monthly reading is carried forward across the days that follow it, so the line is flat within a month and steps at each release.
M2 measures money held by the public. Net liquidity, on the Fed liquidity page, measures the central bank’s balance sheet less the Treasury account and reverse repo. They move for different reasons and neither contains the other.
They are Stablecoin Beat’s own boundaries, at 5% and 0% year-over-year growth. No external standard divides money-supply growth this way. A label states where the current reading falls in a range we have divided; it does not say whether the level is desirable.
The supply series plotted against M2 begins Nov 2017, so it covers every period this page describes. Current-day supply shown as text is the platform headline figure, which is compiled separately from the chart series and can differ from it by a fraction of a percent.