For years, the crypto conversation has been dominated by questions about coin prices, speculative trading and whether digital assets would ever have a place in mainstream finance. But now the conversation is finally catching up to the technology. The next chapter of crypto will have much less to do with speculation and much more to do with something that is core to crypto's promise: how money moves.
Stablecoins are digital assets designed to maintain a stable value, typically by being backed by U.S. dollars or other liquid assets like U.S. And they are increasingly being used to do things that traditional financial rails can’t do: move money quickly and efficiently, 24/7. Last year, roughly $33 trillion in transaction volume moved through stablecoins, a scale that illustrates how far the technology has come.
Stablecoins began largely as a tool to trade crypto. Today, banks, financial technology companies, payment providers and other financial institutions are exploring them as another way to move dollars. The power of stablecoins isn’t about replacing traditional finance but rather supercharging it.
Consider what that looks like in practice. Merchants and business owners get paid faster by their customers, which allows them to pay their suppliers around the clock without waiting for traditional rails to clear. Family members can remit money back home at a fraction of the usual cost.
All of these use cases provide an alternative to traditional payment rails. None of those use cases requires consumers or merchants to become crypto experts. In fact, technology is most successful when you don't have to think about it at all.
Do you really know how your iPhone works? The shift is already beginning to happen. Recognizing that stablecoins are moving into mainstream payment flows, Visa has expanded its stablecoin settlement pilot to allow issuers and acquirers to settle with the network using stablecoins.
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