Transformation of the Global Financial System: In-depth Analysis of the Stablecoin Ecosystem

The global financial system is undergoing a profound wave of transformation. Traditional payment networks are facing comprehensive challenges from stablecoins due to outdated infrastructure, lengthy settlement periods, and high costs. These digital assets are rapidly innovating the model of cross-border value flow, the paradigm of corporate transactions, and the means for individuals to 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 funding flows. At the same time, a series of emerging financial tools, from payment gateways to deposit and withdrawal channels, to programmable yield products, have greatly enhanced the convenience of using stablecoins.

This report provides a deep analysis of the stablecoin ecosystem from both technical and business perspectives. It studies the key players shaping this field, the core infrastructure supporting stablecoin transactions, and the dynamic demand driving its applications. Additionally, it explores how stablecoins give rise to new financial application scenarios and the challenges faced as they are widely integrated into the global economic process.

1. Why choose stablecoin payments?

To explore the influence of stablecoins, we first need to 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. Although they have been integrated into daily life, many payment channels, such as ACH and SWIFT, have been in place since the 1970s. While they were groundbreaking at the time, most of these global payment infrastructures are now outdated and highly fragmented. Overall, these payment methods are plagued by high fees, high friction, long processing times, inability to achieve 24/7 settlement, and complex back-end processes. Additionally, they often come bundled (for a fee) with unnecessary extra services such as identity verification, lending, compliance, fraud protection, and banking 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 capital flow, not only shortening settlement time but also lowering costs.

The main advantages of stablecoin payments can be summarized as follows:

• Real-time settlement: Transactions are completed almost instantaneously, 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: 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 inclusivity.

2. Landscape of the Stablecoin Payment Industry

The stablecoin payment industry can be divided into four technical stack levels:

1. First Layer: Application Layer

The application layer is mainly composed of various types of 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 on the application layer, and provide credit card services for Web3 users.

a. Payment Gateway

The payment gateway is a service that securely processes payments to facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers.

Notable companies innovating in this field include:

• A well-known payment company: Traditional payment providers are integrating stablecoins like USDC for global payments.
• A well-known wallet: It does not provide direct fiat currency exchange functions, but users can achieve deposit and withdrawal operations through integration with its third-party services.
• A certain payment application: 450,000 active wallets and 6,000 merchants. With a certain payment plugin, millions of merchants can settle payments using cryptocurrency and instantly convert a certain stablecoin into other stablecoins, such as USDC, EURC, and PYUSD.
• Some Web2 payment applications also allow users to make payments using stablecoins, further expanding the application scenarios of stablecoins.

The field 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 type, thereby shaping their core products, user experience, and target market.

The developer-oriented payment gateway is designed to serve enterprises, fintech companies, and businesses that need to embed stablecoin infrastructure into their workflows. They typically offer application programming interfaces (APIs), software development kits (SDKs), and developer tools for integration into existing payment systems, enabling features such as automatic payments, stablecoin wallets, virtual accounts, and real-time settlement. Some emerging projects focused on providing such developer tools include:

• A payment company: Provides enterprise-level payment infrastructure for easy integration of stablecoins. The company offers API solutions for seamless processes, has a payment platform for cross-border commercial payments, and allows enterprises to hold and trade multiple stablecoins and fiat currencies through enterprise accounts. It also provides merchant services with the necessary tools for businesses to accept customer payments in stablecoins. 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.
• A certain payment company (in testing phase): provides an API to seamlessly integrate stablecoin transactions into its existing business. It offers businesses global deposit and withdrawal channels, stablecoin payment infrastructure, wallets, and virtual accounts, supporting customized payment workflows (including recurring payments, invoicing, or on-demand payments).
• A certain payment company: offers a range of enterprise payment, salary distribution, and bulk payment APIs, supporting currencies including a certain country's currency, a certain country's currency, USD, a certain stablecoin, and another stablecoin. Mainly targeting a certain regional market, with no operational data available.

Consumer-oriented payment gateways are user-centric, providing easy-to-use interfaces that facilitate stablecoin payments, remittances, and financial services. They typically include mobile wallets, multi-currency support, fiat deposit and withdrawal channels, and seamless cross-border transactions. Some well-known projects that focus on providing users with this simple payment experience include:

• A certain payment platform: an on-chain banking platform that enables personal consumption, remittances, and stablecoin transactions in over 184 countries; this platform collaborates with local channels, including a certain international remittance company, in Latin America to achieve nearly zero withdrawal fees, with over 10,000 South American users and high ratings among certain blockchain developers.
• A payment company: Deposit and withdrawal solutions integrated directly with merchants, allowing users and businesses to easily convert between fiat currency and stablecoins with minimal friction. The company also supports mobile payments to purchase USDC, simplifying the process for consumers to obtain stablecoins.
• A payment application: The stablecoin wallet feature of this application leverages 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 cryptocurrency or stablecoins at traditional merchants. These cards are typically integrated with traditional credit card networks (such as two major credit card companies), enabling seamless transactions by automatically converting cryptocurrency assets into fiat currency at the point of sale.

The project includes:

• A card issuing company: an Asian card issuer with clients including several enterprises, selling white label solutions, mainly relying on transaction volume for commission (e.g., a certain company 85%-a certain company 15%) collaborating with banks in certain regions, covering most areas outside the US, supporting multi-chain deposits; in July 2024, the transaction volume reached $30M.
• A certain card issuer: A card issuer in the Americas that supports multiple companies, with the main feature of servicing users in the US and Latin America. They issued a card for a certain stablecoin company to pay for travel expenses, office supplies, and other daily business expenses using on-chain assets (such as a certain stablecoin).
• A certain card-issuing company: European card issuer + web3 bank, business model similar to the above two companies, supports multiple enterprises in issuing cards; licensed in a certain country, mainly serves European + Asian users, currently does not support full-chain transactions and can only recharge on a certain blockchain. Growth is slow, total users 20k, monthly income $100K-150K.
• A certain card issuing company: The U card on a certain blockchain is growing rapidly, with over 10,000 cards issued, 5-6k monthly active users, a transaction volume of $7m in December 2024, and revenue of $200k.
• A certain card issuing company: stablecoin ecosystem, recently launched a credit card that supports stablecoins and provides a software development kit for L1 and L2 integration, with no data available in the testing phase.

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

2. Second Layer: Payment Processor

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

a. Deposit and Withdrawal Processor

• A certain deposit and withdrawal company: supports over 80 kinds of cryptocurrencies, provides multiple deposit and withdrawal methods and token swap services, meeting users' diversified cryptocurrency trading needs.
• A certain deposit and withdrawal company: covers over 150 countries and provides 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 certain deposit and withdrawal 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 of Processors

• A certain company: The company's core products include a coordination API and an issuance API. The former helps businesses integrate various stablecoin payments and exchanges, while the latter supports businesses 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 operation capabilities and resource advantages.
• A certain company ( testing phase ): 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 go through KYB (Know Your Business), while users need to establish accounts with the company for KYC. The company's clients are mostly on-chain OGs (e.g., certain companies) and are slightly less backed by investors and BD compared to the aforementioned company.
• A company ( testing phase ): The company's platform reduces the issuance threshold for niche stablecoins by encouraging users to provide concentrated liquidity in a single pool. The platform adopts a "central hub-radiating" model, with USD* 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 connected to USD* as similar "spokes". Through this system structure, the platform ensures depth liquidity and enhances capital efficiency, as small stablecoins can interoperate through USD* without needing to provide separate liquidity pools for each trading pair. The ultimate design goal of the system is not only to enhance price stability.