Stablecoin: Reshaping the Future of Global Payments

The global financial system is undergoing profound changes. Traditional payment networks are facing comprehensive challenges from stablecoins due to outdated infrastructure, lengthy settlement cycles, and high costs. Stablecoins are revolutionizing the way cross-border value flows, corporate transactions, and access to personal financial services are conducted.

In recent years, stablecoins have continued to develop and have become an important infrastructure for global payments. Large fintech companies, payment processors, and sovereign entities are gradually integrating stablecoins into consumer-facing applications and business funding flows. At the same time, a series of emerging financial tools, from payment gateways to deposit and withdrawal channels, and to programmable yield products, have greatly enhanced the usability of stablecoins.

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the stablecoin ecosystem from both technological and commercial perspectives. It examines the key players shaping this field, the core infrastructure, and the dynamic demand driving its applications. Furthermore, it discusses how stablecoins are giving rise to new financial application scenarios and the challenges they face in being widely integrated into the global economy.

1. Why choose stablecoin payments?

To understand the influence of stablecoins, one must first examine traditional payment solutions. These traditional systems include cash, checks, debit cards, credit cards, international wire transfers ( SWIFT ), Automated Clearing House ( ACH ), and peer-to-peer payments. While they have become integrated into daily life, many payment channels such as ACH and SWIFT have infrastructure that has existed since the 1970s. Although groundbreaking at the time, most of these global payment infrastructures are now outdated and highly fragmented. Overall, these payment methods suffer from high costs, high friction, long processing times, inability to settle around the clock, and complex back-end processes. In addition, they often require fees ( for unnecessary additional services bundled with identity verification, lending, compliance, fraud protection, and banking integration.

Stablecoin payments are effectively addressing these pain points. Compared to traditional payment methods, using blockchain for payment settlement greatly simplifies the payment process, reduces intermediaries, and achieves real-time visibility of fund flows, which not only shortens settlement times but also lowers costs.

The main advantages of stablecoin payments can be summarized as follows:

• Real-time settlement: Transactions are completed almost instantly, eliminating delays in traditional banking systems.
• Safe and Reliable: The immutable ledger of blockchain ensures the security and transparency of transactions, providing protection for users.
• Cost reduction: Eliminating intermediaries has significantly lowered transaction fees, saving expenses for users.
• Global Coverage: Decentralized platforms can reach markets that are underserved by traditional financial services, including unbanked populations, achieving financial inclusion.

2. The Landscape of the Stablecoin Payment Industry

The stablecoin payment industry can be divided into four technical stack layers:

) 1. Layer 1: Application Layer

The application layer is mainly composed of various payment service providers ( PSP ), which integrate multiple independent deposit and withdrawal payment institutions into a unified aggregation platform. These platforms provide users with convenient access to stablecoins, offer tools for developers developing at the application layer, and provide credit card services for Web3 users.

a. Payment Gateway

Payment gateways are services that securely process payments and facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers.

Notable companies innovating in this field include:

• Stripe: A traditional payment provider that integrates stablecoins like USDC for global payments.
• MetaMask: does not provide direct fiat currency exchange functionality itself, users can perform deposit and withdrawal operations through integration with its third-party services.
• Helio: 450,000 active wallets and 6,000 merchants. With the Solana Pay plugin, millions of Shopify merchants can settle payments with cryptocurrency and instantly convert USDY into other stablecoins, such as USDC, EURC, and PYUSD.
• Some Web2 payment applications also allow users to make payments using stablecoins, further expanding the application scenarios of stablecoins.

The field of payment gateway providers can be clearly divided into two categories ### with some overlap (.

1. Developer-oriented payment gateway; 2( Consumer-oriented payment gateway. Most payment gateway providers tend to focus more on one of these types, thereby shaping their core products, user experience, and target market.

The developer-oriented payment gateway is designed to serve enterprises, fintech companies, and organizations that need to embed stablecoin infrastructure into their workflows. They typically offer application programming interfaces )API), software development kits )SDK(, and developer tools to integrate into existing payment systems, enabling features such as automated payments, stablecoin wallets, virtual accounts, and real-time settlements. Some emerging projects focused on providing such developer tools include:

• BVNK: Provides enterprise-level payment infrastructure for easy integration of stablecoins. BVNK offers API solutions that seamlessly connect processes, has a payment platform for cross-border commercial payments, and allows enterprises to hold and trade multiple stablecoins and fiat currencies through corporate accounts, as well as merchant services that provide the tools necessary for businesses to accept customer payments in stablecoins. Processing over $10 billion in annualized transaction volume, with a growth rate of 200%, a valuation of $750 million, and clients including emerging regions such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
• Iron ) in beta(: Provides APIs to seamlessly integrate stablecoin transactions into existing businesses. It offers enterprises global deposit and withdrawal channels, stablecoin payment infrastructure, wallets, and virtual accounts, supporting customized payment workflows) including recurring payments, invoicing, or on-demand payments(.
• Juicyway: provides a range of enterprise payment, salary distribution, and bulk payment APIs, supporting currencies including Nigerian Naira )NGN(, Canadian Dollar )CAD(, US Dollar )USD(, Tether )USDT(, and USD Coin )USDC(. Primarily targeting the African market, there is currently no operating data.

Consumer-focused payment gateways are user-centric, providing easy-to-use interfaces that facilitate stablecoin payments, remittances, and financial services. They typically include mobile wallets, multi-currency support, fiat deposit and withdrawal channels, and seamless cross-border transactions. Some well-known projects that focus on providing this simple payment experience for users include:

• Decaf: An on-chain banking platform that enables personal consumption, remittances, and stablecoin transactions in over 184 countries; Decaf collaborates with local channels in Latin America, including MoneyGram, to achieve almost zero withdrawal fees, with over 10,000 South American users and high ratings among Solana developers.
• Meso: Deposit and withdrawal solution, directly integrated with merchants, enabling users and businesses to easily convert between fiat currency and stablecoin with minimal friction. Meso also supports the use of stablecoin, simplifying the process for consumers to obtain stablecoins.
• Venmo: The stablecoin wallet feature of Venmo utilizes stablecoin technology, but its functionality is integrated into its existing consumer payment application, allowing users to easily send, receive, and use digital dollars without directly interacting with the blockchain infrastructure.

b. U Card

Cryptocurrency cards are payment cards that allow users to spend cryptocurrency or stablecoins at traditional merchants. These cards are typically integrated with traditional credit card networks, enabling seamless transactions by automatically converting cryptocurrency assets into fiat currency at the point of sale.

The project includes:

• Reap: Asian card issuer, clients include over 40 companies such as Infini, Kast, Genosis pay, Redotpay, Ether.fi, etc., selling white-label solutions, mainly relying on transaction volume commissions in cooperation with Hong Kong banks, covering most areas outside the United States, supporting multi-chain deposits; by July 2024, the transaction volume reached $30M.
• Raincards: American card issuer, supports Avalanche, Offramp, takenos and other companies' card issuance, with the main feature being the ability to serve users in the US and Latin America. Issued a USDC corporate card to pay for travel expenses, office supplies, and other daily business costs using on-chain assets.
• Fiat24: European card issuer + web3 bank, business model similar to the above two companies, supports card issuance for companies like ethsign and safepal; Swiss license, mainly serving users in Europe + Asia, does not yet support full-chain transactions, only allows Arbitrum deposits. Growth is slow with a total of 20,000 users and monthly revenue of $100K-150K.
• Kast: The rapidly growing U Card has issued over 10,000 cards, with 5-6k monthly active users. In December 2024, the transaction volume is expected to be $7m, with revenue of $200k.
• 1Money: stablecoin ecosystem has recently launched a credit card that supports stablecoins and provides a software development kit for easy L1 and L2 integration, currently in beta with no data available.

There are many cryptocurrency card providers, and they mainly differ in terms of service regions and supported currencies, typically offering low-fee services to end users to enhance their motivation to use cryptocurrency cards.

) 2. Layer Two: Payment Processor

As a key layer in the stablecoin technology stack, payment processors are the backbone of payment channels, primarily encompassing two categories: 1. Deposit and withdrawal service providers 2. Stablecoin issuance service providers. They serve as a crucial intermediary layer in the payment lifecycle, connecting Web3 payments with traditional financial systems.

a. Deposit and Withdrawal Processor

• Moonpay: Supports over 80 cryptocurrencies, offers various deposit and withdrawal methods, and provides token swap services to meet users' diverse cryptocurrency trading needs.
• Ramp Network: covers over 150 countries and provides deposit and withdrawal services for more than 90 types of crypto assets. The network handles all KYC( identity verifications), AML### anti-money laundering(, and compliance requirements, ensuring the compliance and security of deposit and withdrawal services.
• Alchemy Pay: a hybrid payment gateway solution that supports bidirectional exchange and payment between fiat currencies and crypto assets, achieving the integration of traditional fiat currency and crypto asset payments.

b. Stablecoin Issuance & Coordination of Processors

• Bridge: The core products of Bridge include Coordination API and Issuance API. The former helps enterprises integrate various stablecoin payments and exchanges, while the latter supports enterprises in quickly issuing stablecoins. The platform is currently licensed in the United States and Europe, and has established important partnerships with the U.S. State Department and the Treasury Department, possessing strong compliance operational capabilities and resource advantages.
• Brale )in beta(: Similar to the Bridge product, it is a regulated stablecoin issuance platform that provides stablecoin coordination and reserve management APIs. It has compliance licenses in various states across the United States, and partner enterprises need to go through KYB, while users must establish an account with Brale for KYC. Brale's clients are more on-chain OGs, and compared to Bridge, the endorsement and business development are slightly weaker.
• Perena ) in beta (: Perena's Numeraire platform reduces the issuance threshold of niche stablecoins by encouraging users to provide concentrated liquidity in a single pool. Numeraire adopts a "central hub-radiating" model, where USD* acts as the central reserve asset and serves as the "hub" for stablecoin issuance and exchange. This mechanism allows for the efficient minting, redeeming, and trading of various stablecoins pegged to different assets or jurisdictions, with each stablecoin connected to USD* as a similar "spoke". Through this system structure, Numeraire ensures deep liquidity and enhances capital efficiency, as small stablecoins can interoperate through USD* without the need to provide decentralized liquidity pools for each trading pair. The ultimate design goal of the system is not only to enhance price stability and reduce slippage but also to achieve seamless conversion between stablecoins.

) 3. Layer Three: Asset Issuers

Asset issuers are responsible for creating, maintaining, and redeeming stablecoins. Their business model typically centers around the balance sheet, similar to bank operations - accepting customer deposits and investing the funds in high-yield assets such as U.S. Treasury bonds to earn a spread. At the asset issuer level, stablecoin innovations can be divided into three tiers: statically reserved stablecoins, interest-bearing stablecoins, and revenue-sharing stablecoins.

1. Stablecoin supported by static reserves

First generation