The Stablecoin Revolution in Progress: Resonance of Technical Architecture and Business Ecosystem

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 Traditional payment networks face comprehensive challenges from stablecoins due to outdated infrastructure, lengthy settlement cycles, and high costs. These digital assets are revolutionizing cross-border value flows, business transaction paradigms, and access to personal financial services.

In recent years, stablecoins have continued to develop and have become an important underlying 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 such as payment gateways, capital inflow and outflow channels, and programmable yield products have greatly enhanced the convenience of using stablecoins.

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the stablecoin ecosystem from both technical and business perspectives. It examines the key players shaping this field, the core infrastructure supporting stablecoin transactions, and the dynamic demand driving its applications. Additionally, it explores how stablecoins give rise to new financial application scenarios and the challenges they face in being widely integrated into the global economic process.

1. Why choose stablecoin payments?

To explore the influence of stablecoins, we first need to 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. While they were groundbreaking at the time, most of these global payment infrastructures are now outdated and highly fragmented.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, inability to achieve round-the-clock settlement, and complex backend processes. Additionally, they often require payment for unnecessary extra services bundled with identity verification, lending, compliance, fraud protection, and bank 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, 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 instantaneously, 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 significantly lowers transaction fees, saving users money.
• Global coverage: Decentralized platforms can reach markets that are underserved by traditional financial services (, including the unbanked population ), achieving financial inclusion.

2. Stablecoin Payment Industry Landscape

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

( 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

A payment gateway is a service that securely processes payments and facilitates transactions between buyers and sellers.

Well-known 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; 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 using cryptocurrency and instantly convert USDY to other stablecoins, such as USDC, EURC, and PYUSD.
• Web2 payment applications such as Apple Pay, PayPal, Cash App, Nubank, and Revolut also allow users to make payments using stablecoin, further expanding the application scenarios of stablecoin.

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

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

The payment gateway aimed at developers is designed to serve businesses, fintech companies, and enterprises that need to integrate stablecoin infrastructure into their workflows. They typically provide 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 settlement. 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 for seamless processes, has a payment platform for cross-border commercial payments, and allows enterprises to hold and trade multiple stablecoins and fiat currencies through enterprise accounts, as well as merchant services that provide the necessary tools for businesses to accept customer stablecoin payments. Processing over $10 billion in annualized transaction volume, with a growth rate of 200%, valued at $750 million, clients include emerging regions such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
• Iron (in beta): provides APIs to seamlessly integrate stablecoin transactions into their existing business. It offers businesses 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). Mainly targeting the African market, there is currently no operational data.

Consumer-focused payment gateways are user-centric, providing an easy-to-use interface for users to make stablecoin payments, remittances, and financial services. They typically include mobile wallets, multi-currency support, fiat currency deposit and withdrawal channels, and seamless cross-border transactions. Some well-known projects that focus 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, including Western Union( and MoneyGram), to achieve nearly zero withdrawal fees, with over 10,000 South American users and high ratings among Solana developers.
• Meso: A deposit and withdrawal solution that integrates directly with merchants, enabling users and businesses to easily convert between fiat currencies and stablecoins with minimal friction. Meso also supports the use of USDC, simplifying the process for consumers to acquire stablecoins.
• Venmo: Venmo's stablecoin wallet feature leverages 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 like Visa or Mastercard, automatically converting cryptocurrency assets to fiat currency at the point of sale to enable seamless transactions.

The project includes:

• Reap: Asian card issuer, clients include Infini, Kast, Genosis pay, Redotpay, Ether.fi and more than 40 enterprises, selling white-label solutions, mainly relying on transaction fee sharing ( like Kast 85%-Reap 15% ) cooperation with Hong Kong banks, can cover most areas outside the United States, supports multi-chain deposit; by July 2024, transaction volume reached $30M.
• Raincards: Card issuer in the Americas, supports card issuance for multiple companies such as Avalanche, Offramp, takenos, etc., 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 ( 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, mainly serving European + Asian users, currently does not support full-chain transactions, only arbitrum top-ups. Growth is slow with a total of 20,000 users, monthly revenue $100K-150K.
• Kast: The rapidly growing U card on Solana has issued over 10,000 cards, with 5-6k monthly active users, projected transaction volume of $7m in December 2024, and revenue of $200k.
• 1Money: stablecoin ecosystem, recently launched a credit card supporting 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 the regions they serve and the currencies they support. They usually offer low-fee services to end users to enhance the enthusiasm for using cryptocurrency cards.

( 2. Layer 2: Payment Processor

As a key layer of the stablecoin technology stack, payment processors are the backbone of payment channels, mainly covering two categories: 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 the deposit and withdrawal services.
• Alchemy Pay: a hybrid payment gateway solution that supports bidirectional exchange and payment between fiat currency and crypto assets, achieving the integration of traditional fiat currency and crypto asset payments.

b. Stablecoin Issuance & Coordination Processors

• Bridge: The core products of Bridge include the Coordination API and the Issuance API. The former helps businesses integrate various stablecoin payments and exchanges, while the latter supports businesses 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, possessing strong compliance operation 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 in the United States, and partner companies are required to undergo KYB( business identity verification), while users need to set up an account on Brale for KYC. Brale's clients are more on-chain OG( such as: Etherfuse, Penera, etc.), which are slightly less endorsed by investors and BD compared to Bridge.
• Perena (in beta): The Numeraire platform of Perena reduces the issuance threshold for 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 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 via USD* without the need to provide separate 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.