Stablecoins Creep into Earnings Calls as Mentions Rise 8,000% in Q3

Listed corporations have started to actively offer their views on stablecoins during earnings calls in the third quarter of this year, marking a change from the previous three months where stablecoins came up in response to analysts’ questions.

This is according to an analysis of earnings calls of 1,600 companies across nine regions and over 50 countries, carried out by HSBC, that found that mentions of the term stablecoins grew 8,000% YoY between July and September.

Daragh Maher, head of digital assets research, and senior FX strategist at HSBC, says that while the number of mentions declined in Q3 compared with the previous quarter, the change in behaviour was notable, especially as management has gone from being reactive and talking about stablecoins in response to questions to proactively offering their strategy around these digital assets. “Management is now just as likely to talk about stablecoins as part of their prepared section as in the Q&A section of their call,” Maher says.

The surge of mentions in the second quarter was supported by the signing into law of the Genius Act on 18 July, shortly before the kick-off to the earnings season. By the third quarter the “heat has gone out” of the topic somewhat, Maher says, noting that US banks in particular, talked a lot less about stablecoins in Q3 than before, however interest in Asia has registered an uptick.

For now, financial companies are at the forefront of this trend, both in the US and elsewhere.

“One note of interest might be the increase in the frequency of mentions evident among Asian developed market financials, a category which includes Hong Kong,” Maher observes. “A new licensing and regulatory framework came into effect on August 1 in Hong Kong. While the overall share of mentions is still relatively small, it is interesting to note the growth in interest around stablecoins.”

In the US, the drop in mentions was down to some of the largest banks such as Citigroup, JP Morgan and Bank of America, and regional banks. Financial as a sector, however, retained their elevated levels of interest, with Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Blackrock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton giving the topic the same amount of airtime in Q3 than before.

“It is clear that stablecoins remain a much bigger talking point than other forms of tokenized money,” Maher says, adding that HSBC still views tokenised deposits as the ‘sleeping giant’ and a bigger part of the future money ecosystem, but for now, they’re nowhere near as prominent as stablecoins.

“The field is likely to grow in 2026 but the dominance of stablecoins in the corporate conversation is understandable given the still very nascent nature of tokenised deposit activity,” he notes.