The Next Stop for Stablecoins: International Payments, Tokenization of US Stocks, and AI Agents

1. Core Ideas

Stablecoins have special advantages in payment scenarios, and the market is particularly focused on their applications in traditional payment fields, especially in cross-border payments for international trade. There are "non-homogeneous" characteristics between different stablecoins, making the competition even more intense. Currently, tokenization of U.S. stocks and AI agents are two major tracks for the advancement of stablecoin applications, which will significantly impact the liquidity of global financial markets.

This article analyzes the prospects of stablecoins entering the payment field, looks forward to the tokenization of US stocks, the role of AI Agents in promoting stablecoins, and explains the establishment of regulatory and compliance systems.

2. Stablecoin and Traditional Payments: A Two-Way Pursuit

2.1 Stablecoins Entering Traditional Payment Field: Innovations in Cost and Settlement Models

Stablecoins, as a cryptocurrency, have the characteristics of peer-to-peer and decentralization. Unlike traditional financial accounts, stablecoin accounts are directly controlled by users, and the infrastructure is maintained by miners. This simple account system makes transfers and remittances more convenient and features immediate payment settlement. In contrast, traditional cross-border remittances, international payments, and stock trading all require some time to complete the final settlement.

In addition, the lightweight account feature of blockchain allows for easy account registration as long as there is network access and terminal devices, which is particularly beneficial for underdeveloped regions. In some underdeveloped countries, people can register blockchain accounts via their mobile phones, use stablecoins for daily remittances and retail payments, and even deal with issues of currency devaluation.

2.2 Traditional giants are actively embracing stablecoin

Many traditional internet and retail giants are exploring the issuance of their own stablecoins. Walmart and Amazon in the United States plan to issue a USD stablecoin to reduce payment friction, accelerate settlement speed, and lower costs. Hong Kong is about to implement the "Stablecoin Regulation," and Ant International and Ant Technology indicated that they will apply for a Hong Kong stablecoin license, while JD.com's stablecoin has entered the second phase of sandbox testing.

The US dollar stablecoin PYUSD launched by payment giant Paypal, although usable in millions of online stores, has a supply scale of only about $950 million, which is not developing as expected. This indicates that even traditional giants face unique market competition logic in the new field of stablecoins.

3. The market competition for stablecoins will be extremely fierce.

3.1 "Non-fungible" determines the universality of the scenario chain, which is the key to competition.

Stablecoins from different issuers have the characteristic of "non-fungibility". Taking the US dollar stablecoin as an example, USDT and USDC have significant differences in trading volume on exchanges. As the largest stablecoin, the universality of USDT is key to its market competitiveness. USDT is widely used not only on centralized exchanges and various public chain DeFi platforms but also has over 400 million users in developing countries.

The issuance of stablecoins itself does not have too many thresholds; the key to scaling is the universality of the scenario chain. Whether a type of stablecoin can be widely accepted in multiple application scenarios constitutes its moat.

3.2 Opportunities and Challenges of Stablecoin in Developing New Payment Systems

The integration of stablecoins with traditional payment systems requires the construction of hardware infrastructure and services. Currently, stablecoins are mainly used in retail payment and remittance scenarios, while the more promising markets in the future are B2B payments and cross-border trade payment systems. Payment giant Stripe is trying to bridge stablecoin payments with traditional banking payment systems, bringing new development potential for stablecoins in the payment field.

Another challenge facing stablecoin payments is payment efficiency. Traditional payment systems can handle hundreds of thousands of transactions per second, while the transaction processing capacity of blockchain networks is currently far from this. As the network's task load increases, improving the payment efficiency of blockchain networks will become a key technical issue that urgently needs to be addressed.

4. Siphoning Financial Liquidity: Tokenization of US Stocks (RWA) and Agent

4.1 US Stock Tokenization: New Catalysts to Look Forward to in the Second Half

The tokenization of US stocks is an important direction in the RWA sector and is expected to drive the growth of stablecoin demand. Traditional financial institutions and cryptocurrency organizations are actively advising regulators to promote the implementation of stock tokenization. Cryptocurrency exchanges are seeking regulatory approval to offer users tokenized stock trading services.

4.2 AI Agent payment is another potential market

Stablecoins are built on blockchain light accounts, making them very suitable for AI Agent-controlled accounts to achieve payments. Smart contract technology perfectly integrates AI intelligent decision-making with account payments. Intent-centric applications demonstrate how AI combines decision-making with payments, providing users with intelligent trading path choices and execution.

5. Regulatory and Compliance of Stablecoins: A Compliant Payment System Still Needs to Be Established

The establishment of a stablecoin payment system is a systematic project that involves asset security, internal control, compliance, and coordination among multiple countries. Currently, the regulation of stablecoins in the payment flow process is in a blank state. The widespread use of stablecoins for payments may lead to the offshore of fiat currencies, which is an unavoidable issue in its development.

Stablecoins are currently in a stage of initial application while also aligning with regulatory frameworks. Regulatory policies will play a role in standardizing the development of stablecoins, while providing traditional financial institutions with clearer business operation logic.

6. Investment Recommendations

It is recommended to pay attention to the RWA and stablecoin-related sectors, including the following companies:

U.S. stocks: Circle, Robinhood, Coinbase, Microstrategy, Futu Holdings, etc. Hong Kong stocks: ZhongAn Online, LianLian Digital, Hengyue Holdings A-shares: Sifang Jingchuang, Zhongke Jincai, Hengbao Co., Ltd., Langxin Group, etc.

7. Risk Warning

• The research and development of blockchain technology did not meet expectations.
• Uncertainty of regulatory policies
• The implementation of Web3.0 business models is below expectations.