Stablecoin Payment Revolution: Resonance of Technical Architecture and Business Ecosystem

The global financial system is undergoing profound changes. Traditional payment networks are facing all-round challenges from stablecoins due to outdated infrastructure, lengthy settlement cycles, and high costs. These digital assets are reshaping the patterns of cross-border value flows, corporate transaction paradigms, and the ways individuals access 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, from payment gateways to inflow and outflow channels, and to 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 are giving rise to new financial application scenarios and the challenges they face in integrating into the global economy.

1. Why choose stablecoin payments?

To understand the impact of stablecoins, one must first examine traditional payment solutions. These traditional systems include cash, checks, debit cards, credit cards, international wire transfers (SWIFT), automated clearing houses (ACH), and peer-to-peer payments, among others. Although they have become integrated into daily life, much of the infrastructure underlying these payment channels has existed since the 1970s. While groundbreaking at the time, most of these global payment infrastructures are now outdated and highly fragmented. Overall, these payment methods face issues such as high fees, high friction, long processing times, inability to achieve round-the-clock settlement, and complex backend processes. Additionally, they often come bundled (for a fee) with unnecessary extra services like 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 found 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: Removing intermediaries has significantly lowered transaction fees, saving expenses for users.
• Global Coverage: Decentralized platforms can reach markets underserved by traditional financial services (including the unbanked population), achieving financial inclusion.

2. The Landscape of the Stablecoin Payment Industry

The stablecoin payment industry can be segmented 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, tools for developers developing on the application layer, and credit card services for Web3 users.

a. Payment Gateway

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

Well-known companies innovating in this field include:

• A certain company: A traditional payment provider that integrates certain stablecoins for global payments.
• Certain wallet: does not provide direct fiat currency exchange functionality; users can perform deposit and withdrawal operations through integration with its third-party services.
• A certain platform: 450,000 active wallets and 6,000 merchants. With the help of a certain payment plugin, millions of merchants can settle payments with cryptocurrency and instantly convert a certain stablecoin into other stablecoins.
• Some Web2 payment applications also allow users to make payments with stablecoins, further broadening the application scenarios of stablecoins.

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

1. Payment gateway for developers; 2) Payment gateway for consumers. Most payment gateway providers tend to focus more on one of these categories, thereby shaping their core products, user experience, and target market.

The developer-oriented payment gateway is designed to serve businesses, fintech companies, and enterprises that need to embed stablecoin infrastructure into their workflows. They typically provide application programming interfaces (APIs), software development kits (SDKs), and developer tools for integration 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:

• A certain platform: provides enterprise-level payment infrastructure for easy integration of stablecoins. This platform offers API solutions for seamless process integration, has a payment platform for cross-border business payments, and allows enterprises to hold and trade various stablecoins and fiat currencies through enterprise accounts, along with merchant services that provide the necessary tools for businesses to accept customer payments in stablecoins. Processing over $10 billion in annualized transaction volume, with a year-on-year growth rate of 200%, and a valuation of $750 million, clients include emerging regions such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
• A certain platform (in testing): provides an API to seamlessly integrate stablecoin trading into its existing business. It offers businesses global funding channels, stablecoin payment infrastructure, wallets, and virtual accounts, supporting customized payment workflows (including recurring payments, invoicing, or on-demand payments).
• A certain platform: provides a series of corporate payment, payroll distribution, and bulk payment APIs, supporting currencies including certain fiat currencies and stablecoins. Mainly targeting the African market, there is currently no operational data.

Consumer-focused payment gateways prioritize users by providing an easy-to-use interface that facilitates stablecoin payments, remittances, and financial services. They typically include mobile wallets, multi-coin support, fiat on and off-ramp channels, and seamless cross-border transactions. Some well-known projects that focus on providing users with this simple payment experience include:

• A certain platform: An on-chain banking platform that enables personal consumption, remittances, and stablecoin transactions in over 184 countries; this platform collaborates with local channels in Latin America, including a certain remittance company, to achieve nearly zero withdrawal fees, with over 10,000 South American users and high ratings among certain public chain developers.
• A certain platform: Deposit and withdrawal solutions, directly integrated with merchants, allowing users and businesses to easily convert between fiat currencies and stablecoins with minimal friction. The platform also supports a certain payment method to purchase a certain stablecoin, simplifying the process for consumers to acquire stablecoins.
• A certain payment platform: Its stablecoin wallet feature 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 the 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, enabling seamless transactions by automatically converting cryptocurrency assets to fiat currency at the point of sale.

The project includes:

• A company: Asian card issuer, clients include multiple enterprises, sells white-label solutions, mainly relies on transaction fees and collaborates with local banks, able to cover most areas outside the United States, supports multi-chain deposits; transaction volume reached $30M in July 2024.
• A certain company: A card issuer in the Americas, supporting multiple companies in card issuance, with the main feature being the ability to serve users in the US and Latin America. They issued a corporate card for a certain stablecoin to pay for travel expenses, office supplies, and other daily business costs.
• A certain company: European card issuer + web3 bank, the business model is similar to the above two, supporting multiple companies to issue cards; licensed in a certain country, mainly serving European + Asian users, currently does not support full-chain transactions, only certain public chain deposits. Growth is slow with a total of 20,000 users and a monthly revenue of $100K-150K.
• A certain company: The U Card, which is growing rapidly on a certain public chain, has currently issued over 10,000 cards, with 5-6k monthly active users, a transaction volume of $7m in December 2024, and revenue of $200k.
• A certain company: stablecoin ecosystem has recently launched a credit card that supports stablecoins and provides a software development kit to facilitate L1 and L2 integration, with no data available in testing.

There are many cryptocurrency card providers, which mainly differ in the regions they serve and the currencies they support, and they usually offer low-fee services to end users to enhance the enthusiasm for using cryptocurrency cards.

2. Layer Two: Payment Processor

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

a. Deposit and Withdrawal Processor

• A certain company: supports over 80 types of cryptocurrencies, offers various deposit and withdrawal methods, and provides token swap services to meet users' diverse cryptocurrency trading needs.
• A certain company: covering over 150 countries, providing deposit and withdrawal services for more than 90 types of crypto assets. The network handles all KYC (Know Your Customer), AML (Anti-Money Laundering), and compliance requirements, ensuring the compliance and security of deposit and withdrawal services.
• A company: 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

• A certain company: Its core products include coordination APIs and issuance APIs, 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 important partnerships with the U.S. Department of State and the Department of the Treasury, boasting strong compliance operation capabilities and resource advantages.
• Company ( is testing ): Similar to the products of the aforementioned company, 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 enterprises are required to undergo KYB (Know Your Business), while users need to set up an account on the platform for KYC (Know Your Customer). The company's clients are primarily on-chain OGs, and compared to the aforementioned company, the endorsement from investors and business development is slightly weaker.
• A company ( is testing ): The company's platform lowers the barrier for issuing niche stablecoins by encouraging users to provide concentrated liquidity in a single pool. The platform adopts a "central hub-radiating" model, with a certain stablecoin serving as the central reserve asset, acting as the "hub" for stablecoin issuance and exchange. This mechanism allows multiple stablecoins linked to different assets or jurisdictions to be efficiently minted, redeemed, and traded, with each stablecoin connected as similar "spokes" to the certain stablecoin. Through this system structure, the platform ensures deep liquidity and enhances capital efficiency, as small stablecoins can interoperate via the certain stablecoin without needing to provide decentralized 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 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 a balance sheet, similar to how banks operate - accepting customer deposits and investing the funds in high-yield assets like U.S. Treasury bonds to earn a spread. At the asset issuer level, stablecoin innovation can be divided into three tiers: static reserve-backed stablecoins, interest-bearing stablecoins, and revenue-sharing stablecoins.

1. Static Reserve-backed Stablecoin

The first generation of stablecoins introduced the foundational model of the digital dollar: centralized issued tokens backed by fiat reserves held by traditional financial institutions in a 1:1 ratio. The main participants in this category include two companies.

Two stablecoins are the most widely used stablecoins.