Stablecoin Payments: Creating a Seamless Global Value Exchange System

The global financial system is undergoing profound changes. Traditional payment networks face comprehensive challenges from stablecoins due to outdated infrastructure, lengthy settlement cycles, and high costs. Stablecoins are rapidly changing the patterns of cross-border value flows, corporate transaction paradigms, and the ways individuals access financial services.

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 corporate cash flows. At the same time, emerging financial tools, from payment gateways to deposit and withdrawal channels, and programmable yield products, have greatly enhanced the convenience of using stablecoins.

This article provides an in-depth analysis of the stablecoin ecosystem from both technical and business perspectives, exploring the key players, core infrastructure, and dynamic demands driving applications in this field. Additionally, 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 impact of stablecoins, we 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. Although they have become integrated into daily life, many payment channels ( such as ACH and SWIFT ) have existed since the 1970s. Most of these global payment infrastructures are now outdated and highly fragmented. Overall, these payment methods are plagued by high fees, high friction, long processing times, lack of 24/7 settlement, and complex backend processes. Additionally, they often require payment ( for unnecessary additional services such as bundled identity verification, lending, compliance, fraud protection, and bank integration.

Stablecoin payments are effectively addressing these pain points. Compared to traditional payments, using blockchain for payment settlement greatly simplifies the process, reduces intermediaries, and enables real-time visibility of fund flows, not only shortening settlement times but also lowering 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 transaction security and transparency, providing protection for users.
• Reduced costs: The removal of intermediaries significantly lowers transaction fees, saving users money.
• Global Coverage: Decentralized platforms can reach markets 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 subdivided into four technical stack layers:

) 1. Layer One: 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 stablecoin access methods, offer tools for developers working in the application layer, and provide credit card services for Web3 users.

a. Payment Gateway

Payment gateway is a service that securely processes payments to 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.
• Other Web2 payment applications also allow users to make payments using stablecoins, further expanding the application scenarios for stablecoins.

The field of payment gateway providers can be clearly divided into two categories with certain overlaps ###.

1( developer-facing payment gateway; 2) consumer-facing payment gateway. Most payment gateway providers tend to focus more on one type, thus shaping their core products, user experience, and target market.

The developer-oriented payment gateway is designed to serve businesses, fintech companies, and enterprises that need to embed stablecoin infrastructure into their workflows. They typically provide application programming interfaces (API), software development kits )SDK), and developer tools for integration into existing payment systems, enabling features such as automated payments, stablecoin wallets, virtual accounts, and real-time settlement. 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 ensure seamless processes, with a payment platform for cross-border commercial payments, as well as enterprise accounts that allow businesses to hold and trade multiple stablecoins and fiat currencies, along with merchant services that provide the tools necessary for businesses to accept customer stablecoin payments. Handling over $10 billion in annualized transaction volume, with a year-over-year growth rate of 200%, and a valuation of $750 million, clients include emerging regions such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
• Iron( in beta): Provides an API to seamlessly integrate stablecoin transactions into its existing business. It offers businesses global inflow and outflow 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). Mainly targeting the African market, there is currently no operational data.

Consumer-facing payment gateways are user-centric, providing an easy-to-use interface that facilitates stablecoin payments, remittances, and financial services. They often include mobile wallets, multi-currency support, fiat deposit and withdrawal channels, and seamless cross-border transactions. Some well-known projects focused on providing users with this simple payment experience 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 to achieve nearly zero withdrawal fees, serving more than 10,000 users in South America.
• Meso: Deposit and withdrawal solutions, directly integrated with merchants, enabling users and businesses to easily convert between fiat currency and stablecoin with minimal friction. Meso also supports Apple Pay for purchasing USDC, simplifying the process for consumers to acquire 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.

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 like Visa or Mastercard(, enabling seamless transactions by automatically converting cryptocurrency assets into fiat currency at the point of sale.

The project includes:

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

There are many cryptocurrency card providers, which mainly differ in terms of service areas and supported currencies, and they usually offer low fees to end users to enhance the enthusiasm for using cryptocurrency cards.

) 2. Second Layer: Payment Processor

As a key layer of the stablecoin technology stack, payment processors are the backbone of payment channels, mainly covering two types: 1. Deposit and withdrawal service providers 2. Stablecoin issuance service providers. They act 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, providing various deposit and withdrawal methods as well as 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 verification), 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 Operators

• Bridge: The core products of Bridge include the Coordination API and the Issuance API. The former helps enterprises integrate multiple 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 Treasury, 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 companies need to pass KYB) business identity verification(, while users need to set up an account with Brale to undergo KYC.
• Perena)in beta(: Perena's Numeraire platform reduces the issuance threshold of niche stablecoins by encouraging users to provide centralized liquidity in a single pool. Numeraire adopts a "central hub-radiating" model, where USD* serves as the central reserve asset, acting as the "hub" for stablecoin issuance and exchange. This mechanism allows for the efficient minting, redemption, and trading of multiple stablecoins linked to different assets or jurisdictions, with each stablecoin acting as a similar "spoke" connected to USD*. 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.

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) 3. Layer 3: Asset Issuer

Asset issuers are responsible for creating, maintaining, and redeeming stablecoins. Their business model is typically centered around a 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 innovation can be divided into three tiers: static reserve-backed stablecoins, yield-generating stablecoins, and profit-sharing stablecoins.

1. Static Reserve-Backed Stablecoin

The first generation of stablecoins introduced the foundational model of the digital dollar: backed by fiat reserves held by traditional financial institutions.