For more than 600 years, since the Medici family revolutionized banking, the financial services industry has innovated, allowing people to protect savings, build wealth, send and receive payments, and exchange currencies.

Each new innovation, from the first paper ledgers to instant credit checks, has brought with it benefits to some and burden to others. During the Renaissance, the Medicis’ international banking network provided high value to the Vatican, European monarchs, aristocrats and, importantly, a growing cadre of international businessmen. Ultimately, with fits and starts over a few centuries, the new system of finance would undergird rapid industrialization, large-scale commerce and a transition from the oppression of feudalism to the opportunity of capitalism.

Bitcoin lending has emerged from the 2022 collapses of BlockFi, Celsius, and Genesis into a lending ecosystem that prioritises collateralisation, transparency, and stronger risk discipline.

Today, Bitcoin-backed lending is showing clear signs of maturation, alongside increased participation from institutional investors and financial firms. Several major US banks have begun offering Bitcoin-backed credit lines, and growing market activity points toward continued expansion of the sector.

In October 2025, the Stablecoin Standard published StableCheck, a due diligence methodology designed to help participants navigate the rapid growth of stablecoins globally. Since then, demand for the StableCheck framework has grown steadily, and we have seen its approach adopted and adapted in both public and private sector efforts toward responsible innovation in the stablecoin sector.

Financial inclusion is one of the most widely discussed objectives in global finance. Yet for many of the people who need it most, access to efficient, affordable financial services remains constrained by infrastructure that has changed little in decades.

Financial inclusion is often framed as “access to an account,” but in practice it is “access to reliable financial outcomes”: the ability to store value, convert currencies, make time-sensitive payments and hedge local volatility at a cost ordinary households and SMEs can afford. In emerging markets, those outcomes are frequently constrained by foreign exchange (FX) frictions, high remittance fees, a shallow local capital market and uneven payment rails. The result is a familiar pattern: remittances are large and persistent, yet moving $200 still costs a meaningful share of income for many recipients, and dollar access during stress becomes a “liquidity” problem as much as a “policy” problem. Global remittance costs averaged 6.49% in early 2025, far above the SDG target of 3%.

Stablecoins are rapidly evolving from crypto trading instruments into core financial infrastructure. Increasingly, they are being explored for cross-border payments, treasury management, and real-time settlement - use cases that extend far beyond digital asset markets.

Cross-border remittances have long been a focus for policymakers, NGOs, and fintech advocates for one simple reason: millions of people around the world rely on them as a primary or secondary source of income. Migrants move in search of better opportunities so they can support their families back home, yet they are forced to pay an average of 6.49% in fees, and in some corridors, costs can reach up to 50%. This is not only wildly inefficient, it’s fundamentally inhumane.

As capital markets evolve under the pressure of digital transformation, financial institutions are increasingly rethinking the architecture of value exchange. Stablecoins, once viewed primarily through the lens of retail crypto adoption, are now entering a more consequential phase: serving as infrastructure for institutional settlement across multiple asset classes.

Stablecoins’ growth trajectory continues to break records. As I noted in my recent blog on the “Distribution Decade,” transaction volumes surpassed Mastercard and Visa combined in 2024. But the real question is what’s driving this growth, and what needs to happen before stablecoins become a standard part of every business’s payment mix?

Stablecoin issuers have quietly become significant actors within the global financial system. As of early 2025, some issuers are among the top 20 direct holders of US Treasuries worldwide, surpassing holdings from foreign central banks, including Germany and Mexico (Outlier Ventures, 2025).

Stablecoins may have started life as the digital asset world’s version of a digital dollar but today, they’re carving out a role that is much more fundamental. Behind  the media headlines and the ongoing regulatory debates, a quiet revolution is underway. 

In the rapidly evolving realm of digital finance, stablecoins have emerged as a pivotal innovation, bridging traditional finance and cryptocurrencies. Designed to maintain a stable value by being pegged to a fiat currency or a basket of assets, they offer a more stable alternative to volatile cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. The majority of stablecoins in usage are US dollar denominated, heightening a need for euro-denominated stablecoins to gain traction in Europe. The US is about to pass legislation that will codify stablecoins as an integral part of everyday finance, likely leading to rapid growth in stablecoin adoption. This article explores the urgency for Europe to accelerate the regulation and growth of euro-denominated stablecoins, highlighting the potential benefits, challenges, and the critical role of regulatory frameworks.

Global commerce has never been more interconnected, yet the systems that move capital across borders remain entrenched in dated infrastructure. Despite a market currently worth over US$194 trillion and forecasted to reach US$320 trillion by 2032, moving capital globally remains slow, opaque, and expensive, particularly for corporates navigating multi-market operations. Beneath this inefficiency lies a structural truth: the global FX layer was built for a fragmented world, not the digitally interconnected one we now inhabit.

Stablecoins already settle hundreds of billions of dollars across borders every month, but most flows still hop through the “stablecoin sandwich”: USD to USD-stablecoin to local fiat currency, or vice versa. The next phase turns “foreign exchange” into a smart-contract function. Think stablecoin-to-stablecoin FX executed atomically on-chain, then paid out locally in seconds either in a wallet, or a local fiat bank account. That shift will redraw the landscape for cross-border payments, and it’s closer than many expect. When that switch flips, a currency conversion will feel no different from a normal transfer, and decades of FX plumbing will look extremely antiquated.

In recent years, few concepts have captured the financial industry’s attention quite like tokenisation. From real estate and private credit to government bonds and art, nearly every form of value is now a potential candidate for being represented as a digital token on a public or private blockchain. The market momentum is also hard to ignore, with experts recently making projections that the value of tokenised real-world assets (RWAs) could reach as high as $10 trillion by the end of this decade. Yet despite this rapid acceleration, one foundational challenge remains unresolved, and that is the lack of a trusted and programmable settlement layer built for institutional scale. 

Responsible innovation means creating frameworks that enable beneficial technological progress while ensuring safeguards against potential misuse. In the case of stablecoins, it is vital that U.S. legislation reflects the reality of how these instruments are used today, not just hypothetical risks. We must craft policy for what stablecoins are a growing, demand-driven financial infrastructure, rather than what they may seem in isolated or bad-faith cases.

The infrastructure being built around stablecoins is foundational for both digital asset innovators and traditional financial institutions. As evidenced by the recent IPO of Circle (issuer of USDC) and the sustained global growth of Tether and other dollar-based stablecoins, the use case is not speculative: it meets a real and increasing demand. Stablecoins are becoming embedded in the global economy, and responsible innovation in this space is a necessity for economic stability.

Blockchain technology is evolving beyond speculation and entering the domain of real, impactful use cases. At the centre of this transformation is the tokenization of Real-World Assets, or RWAs, which are physical or financial assets represented digitally on a blockchain. These include real estate, private equity, commodities, debt, and infrastructure, all becoming more accessible, liquid, and programmable than ever before.

Tokenized RWAs are not just another Web3 trend. They represent a shift in how global capital flows, how investment is democratized, and how traditional financial markets evolve for a digital-first era.

In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper envisioned a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system” designed to enable trustless, decentralized payments. Bitcoin was crafted with retail transactions in mind. Today, the cryptocurrency landscape has evolved dramatically, with dozens of blockchains like Ethereum, Solana and Stellar powering diverse applications. However, this proliferation has led to a fragmented ecosystem. Many blockchain networks operate in silos, with limited communication or compatibility, hindering the seamless retail payment experience that is the standard for digital payments online and in physical stores. Today, with stablecoins poised for rapid growth as regulatory clarity emerges and financial institutions prepare new offerings, blockchain-based retail payments are closer than ever. However, for blockchain-based retail payments to rival the convenience of traditional systems, interoperability – both within blockchain ecosystems and with existing payment infrastructure – is essential.

For a while, big banks toyed with blockchain in glossy pilot projects. CEOs would name-drop “digital assets” on earnings calls, but little tangible change followed. Now, a transformation is underway: mainstream banks are integrating crypto into their core services in a way that would have seemed unlikely just a couple of years ago. From global banks settling trades on blockchain rails to regional players launching 24/7 digital dollar networks; the shift is unmistakable.

While stablecoin have dominated conversations among financial institutions, fintechs, and venture capitalists, the true opportunity lies not in the asset itself—but in its utility. A stablecoin, like any form of money, is inherently useless without a system to give it purpose. It functions as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account, but its real power depends entirely on what it can access, represent, or move.

2025 is shaping up to be a transformative year for digital finance. Amid shifting geopolitical tides, regulatory breakthroughs, and evolving consumer expectations, stablecoins are emerging as the quiet force behind a new wave of payment infrastructure, with major players already making moves. Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge — a stablecoin-focused payments startup — underscores how seriously incumbents are betting on this shift. It's a strong signal that stablecoins aren't just a fringe innovation, but a foundational layer for next-generation payment systems.

“Stablecoin Essentials 2025” distills what policymakers, investors, and innovators need to know about today’s most influential digital‑asset category. Drawing on market data and regulatory milestones, the article

For decades, international payments have been burdened by friction—slow processing times, high fees, and opaque transaction paths. Businesses and individuals alike continue to struggle with a system that is expensive, inefficient, and often unpredictable.

The GENIUS Act aligns closely with the Stablecoin Standard on collateralization and financial crime prevention. There are some differences in the approach for stress testing, governance reporting, third-party audits, and explicit legal separation of reserves. These differences should be addressed in implementing regulations.
Industry perspective is crucial in shaping the final legislation and implementing regulations.

By Stablecoin Standard & Chainlink Labs

By Candace Kelly, Marcelo Prates and Alex Wu, from the Policy Team at the Stellar Development Foundation, Published on 16 September 2024.

By Nejc Bizjak from Bitstamp published on 9 September 2024.

By Joe David from Myna published by Finance Today on 17 July 2024.

Matthew Niemerg - Aleph Zero & Christian Walker - Stablecoin Standard discuss how private stablecoins will be the bedrock of on-chain commerce.