Stablecoin Trends for Cross-Border Payments

Stablecoin Payments: From Fringe to Financial Infrastructure The latest report from Castle Island Ventures, Dragonfly and Artemis reveals the growing role of stablecoins in real-world payments across sectors and regions. Here are 5 key insights: 1. $94.2B in Payments – And Counting - $94.2 billion in stablecoin payments were settled between Jan 2023 and Feb 2025. - As of Feb 2025, payments are annualizing at a $72.3B run rate. - B2B leads with $36B/year, followed by P2P ($18B), card payments ($13.2B), B2C ($3.3B), and prefunding ($2.5B). 2. B2B Is the Breakout Use Case - B2B transactions grew from <$100M/month in early 2023 to $3B/month in early 2025. - High-value transfers dominate: average transaction size exceeds $219K on both Tron and Ethereum. - USDT commands most volume, but USDC holds ~30% share in B2B flows. 3. USDT & Tron Reign Supreme - USDT has ~90% market share among surveyed firms; USDC is a distant second. - Tron is the most-used blockchain for stablecoin settlement, followed by Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain. - In every region (Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America), USDT + Tron is the dominant combo. 4. Cards, Payroll & Micro-Transfers Go Crypto - Stablecoin-linked card payments surged from $250M/month in early 2023 to $1B/month by end of 2024. - B2C payments (payrolls, disbursements) topped $300M/month by early 2025. - Peer-to-peer transfers average <$50 per transaction, beating traditional fees (e.g., Zelle ®: $277 avg.). 5. Stablecoins Are the New Cross-Border Rail - US, Singapore, and Hong Kong lead in stablecoin sending volume. - The Singapore–China corridor is the most active globally. - Platforms like Yellow Card and Bitso are replacing Swift for B2B and remittances in Africa and LatAm. So What? - Stablecoins are no longer just for trading — they’re becoming the internet’s native money for business, payroll, remittances, and everyday payments. - With $2T+ in supply expected by 2028, regulators and enterprises alike must reckon with a new era of programmable, dollar-denominated value transfer — 24/7, instant, and borderless. Great work Anthony Yim, Andrew Van Aken, Nic Carter, Wyatt Khosrowshahi, Rob Hadick and Omar Kanji, CFA

💸 Stablecoins aren’t the future of payments. They’re the present. And it’s happening quietly — from the ground up. The report maps a clear picture of what’s actually happening with stablecoin payments — and it’s not what most people think. ❌ This isn’t about traders swapping tokens on-chain. ✅ It’s about real-world payments. $94.2 billion in stablecoin-based payments were processed by 31 firms between Jan 2023 and Feb 2025 — everything from B2B settlements to prepaid cards and cross-border payroll. By Feb 2025, the run rate hit $72.3 billion annually. That’s not theoretical scale — that’s PayPal size territory. Things That Stood Out for me in the report ✳️ It’s a USDT-on-Tron world: ~90% of stablecoin payments in the study are in Tether (USDT), with Tron leading the chain race across LatAm, Africa, and Asia. Ethereum and USDC? Still used, but they’re trailing 🔍 So what? This isn’t about elegant infrastructure. It’s about fast, cheap, and reliable rails — and Tron+USDT are winning where it counts: on user adoption. ✳️ B2B payments are eating stablecoins. From <$100M/month to >$3B/month in under two years. Stablecoins are being used to pay suppliers, contractors, and even manage treasury 🔍 So what? This is no longer a retail-only tool. Enterprises are integrating stablecoins into core operations — bypassing traditional cross-border systems. ✳️ Remittances are being rebuilt — silently: Corridors like India, Nigeria, and Mexico are increasingly using stablecoins instead of high-fee wire services or remittance apps 🔍 So what? For the first time, we’re seeing remittance flows that don’t touch SWIFT, Visa, or even banks. This is the parallel payments system in action. ✳️ Cards are the bridge to the mainstream: Monthly volume from stablecoin-linked cards surpassed $1B, and users are spending just like they would with Visa or Mastercard 🔍 So what? Stablecoins aren’t just held — they’re spent. This changes how we think about crypto: not as an investment class, but as a medium of daily exchange. ✳️ This is shadow infrastructure for the dollar: If stablecoins were a country, they’d be the 14th largest holder of U.S. Treasuries. Tether and Circle are essentially private extensions of the U.S. dollar abroad 🔍 So what? The U.S. may not have launched a CBDC, but stablecoins are already exporting the dollar — faster, further, and frictionlessly. So much got de-dollarisation 🤣🤣🤣 📌 Final thought: If you’re still filing stablecoins under “crypto hype,” you’re missing the infrastructure story unfolding right under your nose. Ignore it, and you’ll miss the next payments rail. Joseph Salim Mohammad Fope Dmitri Nicolas Atul Metin Mehdi Maha Dominic Miray #Stablecoins #Payments #Fintech #USDT #B2BPayments #Remittances #DigitalDollar #CryptoInfrastructure #Web3Finance #Tron #USDC #FinancialInclusion #EmergingMarkets #Paytech

Stablecoins are rewriting the rules of global money. Yesterday, EURAU, Germany’s first fully regulated euro-denominated stablecoin went live. 𝗔 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝘇𝗼𝗻𝗲. 𝗔 𝗯𝗶𝗴 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗽 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀. So far USDT and USDC have dominated stablecoin rails - enabling millions across emerging markets to store value, send remittances, hedge against inflation, and access dollar-based finance. Here are just a few figures: 🇳🇬 40%+ of adults in Nigeria have used crypto, primarily stablecoins 🇦🇷 In Argentina, USDT is often easier to get than USD bills and 80% of all tech contractors are paid with it. 🇹🇷 In Turkey, USDT is making up over 50% of total crypto volume, helping locals to escape inflation. But so far everything was USD based. Even in countries that are traditionally closer oriented towards the EUR (think francophone Africa, Ukraine or Turkey). But USDT is not MiCaR compliant and was delisted earlier this year by most exchanges. Now imagine what happens when the Euro enters the ring. EURAU is backed 1:1 by regulated bank deposits, issued by AllUnity, a Frankfurt-based joint venture between Deutsche Bank’s asset manager DWS Group. It’s built for MiCAR compliance, issued on Ethereum, and instantly available via Unstoppable Finance’s Ultimate wallet. This is not a whitepaper. It’s live. Why does it matter? Because we’re approaching a tipping point: Cross-border lending in stablecoins is becoming real FX and remittances could shift to on-chain rails International payroll, B2B payments, and invoice settlement might move faster, cheaper, and more transparently than ever before This won’t just disrupt remittances, FX exchange but also SWIFT itself. It threatens any bank that still sees international payments as a back-office function. 💥 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝟱 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆. The era of true borderless Euro-banking has just begun. The future of money is not about currency. It’s about infrastructure. **** Congrats on the launch, Stefan Hoops! Brilliant team 👏 #stablecoins #fintech #banking #eura #fx

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬-𝐁𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 — the infrastructure 👇 For decades, cross-border payments ran on correspondent banking: slow settlement, layered intermediaries, opaque pricing. "Stablecoins are changing the rails, not the money." — FXC Intelligence, stablecoins still represent <1% of global cross-border volume, yet already unlock a $16.5T–$23.7T TAM. — 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐤: Stablecoin payments are not ��just tokens” — they rely on a full stack: → 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 Payment apps, payout tools, treasury dashboards → 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 KYC, AML, sanctions — increasingly identical to TradFi → 𝐅𝐗, 𝐨𝐧-𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐩 & 𝐨𝐟𝐟-𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐩 𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 Liquidity providers converting local fiat ↔ stablecoins → 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧 & 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 This is becoming critical infrastructure. Platforms like Dfns enable enterprises to securely manage programmable wallets, policy controls, and large transaction volumes. → 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 The settlement rails — Ethereum, Solana, Base, Tron — where value actually moves. — 𝐓𝐡𝐞 “𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐰𝐢𝐜𝐡” 𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞 Instead of routing through chains of correspondent banks: → Sender pays in fiat → On-ramp converts fiat to USDC/USDT → Stablecoin settles globally in minutes → Off-ramp converts to local currency → Recipient receives funds faster, cheaper, and with full traceability In many cases, the last step disappears entirely. Recipients keep and use the stablecoin directly — the “open sandwich” model now powering payroll, merchant settlement, treasury ops, and crypto-native commerce. — 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐀𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥 → $5.7T stablecoin transaction volume in 2024 → $4.6T already processed in H1 2025 → Over 80% of supply concentrated in USDT & USDC → B2B dominates the opportunity (up to $18.8T TAM) This isn’t hype — it’s live volume. — 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰: → 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐲 & 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞: Dfns, BitGo, Fireblocks → 𝐏𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 & 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐬: BVNK, Conduit, Orbital, Mural Pay → 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬: Breeze, redefining the Merchant-of-Record with programmable, blockchain-native settlement → 𝐈𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞𝐫𝐬 & 𝐋𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐲: Circle (USDC), Tether.io (USDT) → 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭-𝐠𝐞𝐧 𝐑𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬: Plasma, purpose-built for stablecoin payments and high-throughput settlement Each layer matters. No single player replaces the system — together, they upgrade it. ↳ 🚨 Banks are becoming wallet providers. 🚨 Settlement is moving from days to minutes. 🚨 Money is becoming programmable. Stablecoins are emerging as a new global liquidity layer, embedded inside the financial system. — Source: FXC Intelligence ► 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐬 : https://lnkd.in/g5cDhnjC ► Connecting the dots in Payments... | Marcel van Oost

Over the past decade, I've talked a lot about how B2B payments have lagged behind consumer innovation. Cross-border transactions still take days, fees remain stubbornly high, and transparency is limited. Crypto is having a tough quarter - yes - but stablecoins continue to emerge as a transformative force—bridging the gap between traditional finance and digital assets. Here’s why this matters: • Global Settlement at Scale: Stablecoins enable near-instant, 24/7 settlement across borders, reducing reliance on intermediaries and cutting costs dramatically. • Efficiency & Transparency: Businesses gain real-time visibility into transactions, improving cash flow management and reducing reconciliation headaches. • Stability Without Volatility: Unlike other cryptocurrencies, stablecoins are pegged to fiat or commodities, making them practical for enterprise use. • Adoption Momentum: As of early 2025, 27M+ active users are leveraging stablecoins for payments, signaling traction. • Risks & Regulation: While the promise is clear, stablecoins also raise questions around currency substitution, capital flows, and regulatory oversight. The future of B2B payments will not be about replacing banks or card networks but about integrating stablecoins into existing infrastructures to unlock speed, cost savings, and resilience. A new kind of "embedded finance". Forward-looking companies are already experimenting with tokenized cash and blockchain rails to future-proof their treasury and payments strategies. For fintech leaders, CFOs, and treasury teams, the call to action is clear: • Start piloting stablecoin-based settlement in controlled environments. • Engage with regulators to shape responsible frameworks. • Explore partnerships that combine traditional trust with digital innovation. Stablecoins will become essential infrastructure for modern B2B commerce. The winners will be those who embrace this shift early, balancing innovation with compliance.

Visa just announced a pilot to allow pre-funding of Visa Direct via stablecoins rather than fiat and to treat those stablecoins as “money in the bank” to fuel outgoing payouts. With 8 billion endpoints around the world, Visa Direct has huge reach that’s gotten even more impactful. If your company is managing large-scale payouts or payments across many countries (marketplaces, payroll, remittances, supply chains, fintechs in general), here’s how this shift can matter in concrete terms: 1. Less capital locked in advance Instead of needing to “pre-fund” fiat accounts days (or weeks) ahead in each destination market, you can hold more of your capital in working assets and only convert/disburse when needed. That can free up millions in capital, especially in high-volume corridors. 2. Shortened settlement windows & real-time flexibility. Traditional cross-border flows often involve cut-off times, banking holidays, overnight reconciliation, intermediary bank delays. A stablecoin prefunding layer shortens that “float time” drastically. You can respond to last-minute payout needs without the lag of banking hours. 3. FX & volatility insulation. Because stablecoins provide a consistent “settlement layer,” treasury operations can be more insulated from local currency volatility or idiosyncratic banking delays. Essentially, the funding leg becomes more deterministic. 4. Operational simplification & reduced reconciliation overhead. Fewer banking relationships across jurisdictions, fewer accounts to monitor, less manual reconciliation across intermediaries; all of that saves operations cost and error. 5. Scalability across new corridors. When adding a new country or region, instead of needing to spin up local fiat accounts, you can more rapidly plug in via the stablecoin funding mechanism, lowering onboarding friction for new geographies. 6. Better liquidity management as volume fluctuates. For businesses with seasonal, cyclical, or spiky payout demands, this approach gives more elasticity: you don’t have to over-provision for worst-case peaks across every market in advance. 7. 24/7 / off-hours flow. Because blockchain-based settlement isn’t limited to banking hours, payouts can occur even weekends or holidays. In sum: this is a game changer and path toward monetizing latent capital, reducing friction costs, and improving agility. It’s a disruptive structural upgrade in how money flows.

People often talk about how stablecoins are great for cross-border payments, but to understand why, you need to understand how international payments work today. Let’s start with the basics. Customers are more likely to convert if: 1️⃣ Prices are shown in local currency 2️⃣ Customers can pay with their preferred payment method (often a local method) This is logical and glaringly obvious, but implementing this is non-trivial and comes with trade-offs. Pricing in local currency means... ➡️ You take on FX risk, and can lose big… 🇪🇺 Pricing something at €8 might be $10 today, but only $9.50 next month. 🇿🇦 In markets with fluctuating currency rates (e.g., South Africa), this risk increases — R$175 might be $10 today, but only $7 tomorrow. You can try to mitigate risk by converting quickly, but that often means higher fees and longer settlement times. Accepting local payment methods means… ➡️ Needing to set up local accounts, which can be costly and time-consuming. ➡️ Changing your business model, as not all billing types are supported by every payment method. If you’re using a processor like Stripe for Pix, they only support accepting one-time payments, not subscriptions. To spell this out, if you want to sell into Brazil with the most widely used payment method, you can’t do subscriptions with autopay. Businesses run into real costs when trying to price in the local currency and accept local payment methods. The excitement around stablecoins is that they can address and often eliminate these costs. 💵 PRICING Consumers prefer local currency because it’s the denomination of their wealth. With US-backed stablecoins commanding over 99% of market share, most consumers paying with stables are comfortable with US-denominated pricing. Merchants are able to price in dollars while the customer is able to pay in their “local currency." ➡️ For US merchants, FX risk is removed. ➡️ For non-US merchants, FX risk shifts to dollars, a much lower risk since dollars are highly liquid and can be more cheaply and easily converted to local currency. Companies like Loop Crypto help merchants settle in their local currency cheaply and quickly, with settlement times typically T+0 or T+1. 💸 PAYMENT METHOD At Loop, we’re seeing 1 in 5 customers pick stablecoins even when fiat is offered - a staggering number for a relatively new payment method. And this is happening in countries that even have many local payment method options. We’re seeing the most transactions from countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Canada, and Japan. This is a strong indication that stablecoins are becoming a preferred payment method. Loop makes it fast and easy to add stablecoins alongside other payment methods. For merchants looking to accept global payments for the first time or those looking to save on cross-border payments, it’s a no-brainer to add stablecoins. It's a win-win for merchants and customers.

As we get closer to concluding 2025 and planning 2026, stablecoins seems to be present in every (fintech-related) room. Whether talking to investors, founders, or financial institutions, #stablecoins and #crossborderpayments are some of the hottest topics (and AI / agentic payments too, but that’s for another post).  Historically treated as separate conversations, but the real shift becomes clear when you look at them together.  After spending years in my career deep inside the messy realities of cross-border money movement, from my days at PayPal connecting financial systems and rails, to seeing firsthand how global money movement remains slow, expensive, and stacked with intermediaries. Multiple hops, multiple fees, and timelines that simply don’t fit a digital world. Stablecoins don’t solve everything, but they shine where the pain is greatest: global settlement. They move at internet speed, operate 24/7, and offer transparency and programmability, all while maintaining the stability of traditional currency. And importantly, stablecoin adoption is no longer tied to crypto speculation. Payments, remittances, and treasury flows are now driving real, organic usage.  Meanwhile, major institutions have moved from experimenting to integrating. BlackRock and Fidelity Investments are tokenizing products. Visa, PayPal, Stripe, Citi, and JPMorganChase are building and upgrading rails to move value on-chain. This isn’t innovation theater, it’s the beginning of a structural rewrite of how money moves globally.  With the new #GENIUSAct, stablecoins now have a clearer U.S. regulatory footing, shifting them from “interesting but risky” to a legitimate, compliant financial rail. For U.S. #banks, this convergence is more than a technology trend; it’s a strategic turning point. Stablecoin rails compress fees, collapse intermediary chains, and introduce credible non-bank competitors into cross-border flows. That threatens high-margin revenue, but it also opens the door to new opportunities for banks that choose to lean in, becoming the trusted intelligence, compliance, and service layer on top of next-generation rails.  The rails are changing. The question is who changes with them.

🚨 Africa's Cross-Border Payments Are Changing — And Fast. For decades, sending money across African borders has been a painful experience: ❌ High fees (up to 20%) ⏳ Slow processing (3–5 days) 💸 FX losses 🚫 Exclusion of the unbanked But today, a major shift is happening. Stablecoins — digital assets pegged to USD — are becoming the new rails for cross-border payments in Africa. Why? ✅ Transactions settle in seconds, not days ✅ Fees are lower than ever ✅ No need for a traditional bank account ✅ Users escape local currency devaluation ✅ Full transparency on blockchain ✅ Access via mobile — not paperwork From remittances to business trade and payroll, stablecoins are quietly revolutionizing African finance. As someone who works closely at the intersection of fintech, operations, and economic development, I believe stablecoins could unlock massive opportunities, if guided by the right infrastructure and regulation. Let’s continue building for financial inclusion, cross-border efficiency, and economic sovereignty. #Fintech #Stablecoins #AfricaRising #CrossBorderPayments #Blockchain #FinancialInclusion #DigitalAssets #Web3 #AfCFTA #StablecoinAdoption

Leaving Stanford wasn’t the risky choice. Ignoring what stablecoins are about to unlock felt riskier. For decades, global payments have relied on slow, expensive legacy rails. A single SWIFT transfer can pass through multiple intermediary banks, each adding time, cost, and reconciliation risk before funds reach the recipient. Recent U.S. regulation with the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act makes this shift unmistakable. With major financial institutions expected to tokenize deposits in 2026, mainstream stablecoin adoption is closer. Globally, stablecoin usage is projected to grow 45% across LATAM and Southeast Asia, alongside MiCA frameworks that clarify reserve requirements so institutions can adopt these rails responsibly. While at Money20/20, I met Rodney E. Hood, former Acting Comptroller of the Currency and National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Chairman. He’s helped shape how financial innovation scales in the U.S. within strong regulatory guardrails across 1,000+ federally regulated banking institutions. Speaking with him reinforced that stablecoins only scale in the U.S. when they meet bank-grade standards. Clear reserves, strong governance, BSA/AML, KYC, and OFAC controls are non-negotiable. It also requires end-to-end traceability, so you can monitor fund flows and retain the underlying correspondent and beneficiary information. At Crebit Pay, the thesis is simple: use stablecoin rails where they help. We abstract the crypto complexity behind the scenes, so users don’t need to learn wallets or gas fees to get faster, cheaper cross-border payments. Since launching in September, we’ve processed nearly half a million dollars in tuition, housing, and factory invoice payments for customers in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, and next we’re scaling these corridors across LATAM and into Africa. We’re living through a financial revolution, and stablecoins are at the center of it.