Canada's remittance-sized crypto transfers to Asia grew 141% from a base under $1 billion

A 141% rise means the year-earlier total was about $0.98 billion ^[14], so the three corridors added roughly $1.38 billion in twelve months ^[15]. Global cross-border stablecoin flows grew 77.5% over the same period, to $220.3 billion ^[7], though that series counts stablecoins only and the Canadian one adds Bitcoin ^[20].

The case for displacement rests on price. Chainalysis cites a World Bank estimate that puts the average cost of sending money from Canada at 6.7% ^[6]. On the average $663 transfer ^[4] that is $44.42 ^[18], before the currency conversion and cash-out costs that Chainalysis says low blockchain settlement fees leave out ^[13].

The scope of the $2.36 billion is harder to pin down. Both outlets say the analysis covers transfers above $10,000 ^[20][22]. A $10,000 floor across 3.56 million transactions would total at least $35.6 billion ^[24], about 15 times the reported figure. The Philippines corridor points the same way: Cointelegraph reports $61.02 million across 73,564 transactions ^[9], about $830 each ^[17]. Either the threshold applies to something other than the individual transfer or a figure is misreported. Eric Jardine, Chainalysis's head of research, told Cointelegraph that the firm does not limit its analysis to the smallest transfers to avoid "omitting real remittance value" ^[21].

The outlets also split on the Philippines total, which Cryptopolitan puts at $61.04 million ^[8], and Cointelegraph prints the three countries' share of Canada's outbound stablecoin value as 194% ^[23]. A share cannot exceed 100%, so that number is an error in print.

Stablecoins reached 44% of Canadian-dollar order-book volume in June, up from 30% a year earlier, according to Cointelegraph's account of the report ^[5]. That is a gain of 14 points ^[16]. Cryptopolitan describes the change as a 30% increase ^[12]. Order-book volume counts trading on Canadian-dollar markets, a separate series from the wallet transfers behind the $2.36 billion.

The figure could mean different things. If the wallets belong to families and the total is a large slice of what Canadians send to these countries, banks and wire services are losing real business. If "remittance-sized" is only a size bucket, some of the volume could be traders moving money between accounts. Chainalysis cautioned that the link between Canada's domestic P2P activity and its temporary visa-holder population since mid-2021 was correlational ^[11].

We think the evidence supports growth and a plausible motive, and no more. About 23% of Canada's population is foreign-born, the highest share in the G7 ^[3]. "Remittance corridors to India, the Philippines, Nigeria, Pakistan, and China are heavily used," Morva Rohani, executive director of the Canadian Web3 Council, said in the report ^[10]. We would be wrong if a total for Canadian remittances to the three countries put $2.36 billion at a double-digit share. The sources do not include that total.