Stablecoin Revolution: 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 Traditional payment networks face comprehensive challenges from stablecoins due to outdated infrastructure, long settlement periods, and high costs. These digital assets are reshaping the ways cross-border value flows, corporate transactions, and access to personal financial services are conducted.

In recent years, stablecoins have continued to develop and have become an important infrastructure for global payments. Large technology 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 inflow and outflow channels, and programmable yield products, have greatly enhanced the convenience of using stablecoins.

This report analyzes the stablecoin ecosystem in depth from both technical and business perspectives, studying the key players shaping this field, the core infrastructure supporting stablecoin transactions, and the demand drivers promoting its applications. Additionally, it explores how stablecoins can give 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 influence of stablecoins, it is essential 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 been in place since the 1970s. While groundbreaking at the time, most of these global payment infrastructures are now outdated and highly fragmented. Overall, these payment methods come with high fees, high friction, long processing times, inability to settle around the clock, and complex back-end procedures. Furthermore, 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 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 instantly, 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 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 divided 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 access to stablecoins, offer tools for developers working at the application layer, and provide credit card services for Web3 users.

a. Payment Gateway

Payment gateway is a service that securely processes payments and facilitates 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 functions; users can perform deposit and withdrawal operations by integrating with 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 stablecoins, further expanding the application scenarios for stablecoins.

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

1. Developer-oriented payment gateway; 2) Consumer-oriented payment gateway. Most payment gateway providers tend to focus more on one type, thereby shaping their core products, user experience, and target market.

The payment gateway aimed at developers is designed to serve businesses, fintech companies, and enterprises that need to embed stablecoin infrastructure into their workflows. They typically offer application programming interfaces ( API ), software development kits ( SDK ), and developer tools for integration into existing payment systems to achieve functions such as automatic 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 that seamlessly connect 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 needed for businesses to accept customer stablecoin payments. Processing over $10 billion in annualized transaction volume, with a 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 APIs to seamlessly integrate stablecoin transactions into existing businesses. It offers enterprises 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 corporate 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, with no operational data available yet.

Consumer-focused payment gateways prioritize the user, providing an easy-to-use interface for 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 ), achieving almost zero withdrawal fees, with over 10,000 South American users and high ratings among Solana developers.
• Meso: Deposit and withdrawal solution, directly integrated with merchants, allowing users and businesses to easily convert between fiat currency and stablecoin with minimal friction. Meso also supports Apple Pay to purchase 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 blockchain infrastructure.

b. U Card

Cryptocurrency cards are payment cards that allow users to spend cryptocurrencies or stablecoins at traditional merchants. These cards are typically integrated with traditional credit card networks such as Visa or Mastercard (, enabling seamless transactions by automatically converting cryptocurrency assets to fiat currency at the point of sale.

The project includes:

• Reap: An Asian card issuer with clients including Infini, Kast, Genosis pay, Redotpay, Ether.fi and more than 40 other enterprises, selling white-label solutions, mainly relying on transaction fee commissions ) like Kast 85%-Reap 15%( cooperating with banks in Hong Kong, can cover most areas outside the United States, supporting multi-chain deposit; 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. Its biggest feature is the ability to serve users in the US 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, business model similar to the above two, supports card issuance for enterprises like ethsign, safepal; Swiss license, mainly serving European + Asian users, currently does not support full chain transactions, only Arbitrum deposits. Growing slowly 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. In December 2024, the transaction volume is expected to be $7m, with revenue of $200k.
• 1Money: stablecoin ecosystem has recently launched a credit card that supports 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, which mainly differ in service regions and supported currencies, and they usually offer low-fee services to end users to enhance the enthusiasm for using cryptocurrency cards.

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2. Second Layer: Payment Processor

As a key layer in the stablecoin technology stack, payment processors are the pillars of payment channels, mainly covering two categories: 1. Deposit and withdrawal service providers 2. Stablecoin issuance service providers. They act as a critical intermediary layer in the payment lifecycle, connecting Web3 payments with traditional financial systems.

a. Deposit and Withdrawal Processor

• Moonpay: Supports over 80 cryptocurrencies, provides various deposit and withdrawal methods, and token swap services to meet users' diverse cryptocurrency trading needs.
• Ramp Network: Covers over 150 countries, providing deposit and withdrawal services for more than 90 types of cryptocurrencies. 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 Operator

• Bridge: The core products of Bridge include the Coordination API and the Issuance API. The former helps enterprises integrate various 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 significant partnerships with the U.S. State Department and the 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 are required to undergo KYB ) corporate identity verification (, while users need to set up an account with Brale for KYC. Brale's clients are primarily on-chain OGs ) such as Etherfuse, Penera, etc. (, which are slightly less backed by investors and business development compared to Bridge.
• Perena ) in beta (: Perena's Numeraire platform reduces the issuance threshold for niche stablecoins by encouraging users to provide concentrated liquidity in a single pool. Numeraire employs 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 functioning as a similar "spoke" connected to USD*. Through this system architecture, Numeraire ensures deep liquidity and enhances capital efficiency, as small stablecoins can interoperate through 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 enable seamless conversion between stablecoins.

3. Layer Three: Asset Issuers

Asset issuers are responsible for creating, maintaining, and redeeming stablecoins. Their business model is typically centered around the balance sheet, similar to bank operations - accepting customers.