The Stablecoin Revolution in Progress: Resonance of Technical Architecture and Business Ecosystem

The global financial system is undergoing profound changes. Traditional payment networks are facing comprehensive challenges from stablecoins due to outdated infrastructure, lengthy settlement cycles, and high costs. These digital assets are revolutionizing the way cross-border value flows, corporate transactions, and access to personal financial services are conducted.

In recent years, stablecoins have developed rapidly and have become an important infrastructure for global payments. Large technology companies, payment processors, and sovereign entities are integrating stablecoins into consumer-facing applications and corporate capital flows. Meanwhile, emerging financial tools, from payment gateways to deposit and withdrawal 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 a technical and business perspective, examining the key participants, core infrastructure, and the demand dynamics driving its application. Additionally, it explores how stablecoins are giving 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, we must first examine traditional payment solutions. These traditional systems include cash, checks, debit cards, credit cards, international wire transfers, automated clearing houses, and peer-to-peer payments. Although integrated into daily life, the infrastructure of many payment channels has existed since the 1970s. Today, much of this global payment infrastructure is outdated and highly fragmented. Overall, these payment methods have issues such as high fees, high friction, long processing times, inability to settle 24/7, and complex back-end processes. Additionally, they often require unnecessary extra services that incur fees for 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 cash flow, which not only shortens settlement time but also lowers 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 expenses for users.
• Global Coverage: The decentralized platform can reach markets that are 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 levels:

( 1. First Layer: 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 developing on the application layer, and provide credit card services for Web3 users.

a. Payment Gateway

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

Notable companies innovating in this field include:

• A traditional payment provider: integrating a stablecoin for global payments.
• A certain cryptocurrency wallet: does not provide direct fiat currency exchange functionality itself, users can perform deposit and withdrawal operations through integration with its third-party services.
• A certain payment platform: 450,000 active wallets and 6,000 merchants. With the help of a certain payment plugin, millions of e-commerce merchants can settle payments using cryptocurrency and instantly convert a certain stablecoin into other stablecoins.
• 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 of the two categories, thereby shaping their core products, user experience, and target market.

The developer-focused payment gateway aims to serve businesses, fintech companies, and enterprises that need to embed stablecoin infrastructure into their workflows. They typically offer application programming interface )API), software development kits (SDK), and developer tools to integrate into existing payment systems, enabling features such as automated payments, stablecoin wallets, virtual accounts, and real-time settlement. Some emerging projects that focus on providing such developer tools include:

• A provider of enterprise-level payment infrastructure: offers API solutions to ensure seamless processes, has a payment platform for cross-border business payments, as well as enterprise accounts that allow businesses to hold and trade multiple stablecoins and fiat currencies, and merchant services that provide the tools necessary for businesses to accept customer stablecoin payments. 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.
• An API provider ( is testing ): providing an API to seamlessly integrate stablecoin transactions into their 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 corporate payment API provider: offers 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). Primarily targeting the African market, with no operational data available yet.

Consumer-oriented payment gateways are user-centric, providing an easy-to-use interface that facilitates 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:

• A blockchain banking platform: enables personal consumption, remittance, and stablecoin transactions in over 184 countries; collaborates with local channels, including a remittance company, in Latin America to achieve almost zero withdrawal fees, with over 10,000 South American users and high ratings among certain public chain developers.
• A certain deposit and withdrawal solution: Direct integration with merchants allows users and businesses to easily convert between fiat currency and stablecoin, with minimal friction. It also supports purchasing a certain stablecoin using a certain payment method, simplifying the process for consumers to acquire stablecoins.
• A certain payment application: 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 cryptocurrency or stablecoins at traditional merchants. These cards are typically integrated with traditional credit card networks (, such as a credit card organization ), enabling seamless transactions by automatically converting cryptocurrency assets to fiat currency at the point of sale.

The project includes:

• A certain Asian card issuer: Clients include over 40 companies such as certain enterprises, selling white-label solutions, mainly relying on transaction fee commissions (, such as 85% for certain enterprises and 15% for the card issuer ) collaborating with banks in certain regions, which can cover most areas outside a certain country, and supports multi-chain deposits; by July 2024, the transaction volume reached $30M.
• Some card issuers in the Americas: support certain companies' card issuance, with the main feature being the ability to serve users in specific regions. I issued a card from a certain stablecoin company using on-chain assets ( to pay for travel expenses, office supplies, and other daily business expenses.
• A European card issuer + web3 bank: The business model is similar to the above two, supporting certain enterprises in issuing cards; licensed in a certain country, mainly serving users in certain regions, currently does not support full-chain transactions and only allows deposits on a specific public chain. Growth is slow with a total of 20,000 users and a monthly revenue of $100K-150K.
• The U card on a certain public chain is growing rapidly: currently over 10,000 cards have been issued, with 5-6k monthly active users, a transaction volume of $7m in December 2024, and revenue of $200k.
• A certain stablecoin ecosystem: Recently launched a credit card that supports stablecoins and provides a software development kit to facilitate L1 and L2 integration, currently in the testing phase with no data available.

There are many cryptocurrency card providers, and they mainly differ in terms of service areas and supported currencies. Typically, they offer low-cost 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, mainly covering two categories: 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 deposit and withdrawal service provider: supports over 80 types of cryptocurrencies, offers various deposit and withdrawal methods, and token swap services to meet users' diverse cryptocurrency trading needs.
• A certain network: covering over 150 countries, providing deposit and withdrawal services for more than 90 types of crypto assets. This network handles all KYC( identity verification), AML### anti-money laundering(, and compliance requirements, ensuring the compliance and security of deposit and withdrawal services.
• A mixed payment gateway: a mixed payment gateway solution that supports bilateral 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 stablecoin issuance service provider: the core products include a coordination API and an 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 certain regions and has established important partnerships with some government departments, possessing strong compliance operation capabilities and resource advantages.
• A regulated stablecoin issuance platform ) is in testing (: similar to the above, it is a regulated stablecoin issuance platform that provides stablecoin coordination and reserve management APIs. It has compliance licenses in various states of a certain country, and partner enterprises are required to go through KYB ) corporate identity verification (, while users need to create an account on the platform for KYC. The clients are mostly on-chain OG ), such as certain enterprises ( which are slightly weaker in investment endorsements and BD compared to the above platform.
• A certain stablecoin platform ) is under testing (: This platform lowers the issuance threshold for niche stablecoins by encouraging users to provide centralized liquidity in a single pool. It adopts a "central hub-radiating" model, where a certain stablecoin acts as the central reserve asset, serving as the "hub" for the issuance and exchange of stablecoins. This mechanism allows for the efficient minting, redemption, and trading of multiple stablecoins linked to different assets or jurisdictions, with each stablecoin connecting to a certain stablecoin as a similar "spoke." Through this system structure, the platform ensures deep liquidity and enhances capital efficiency, as smaller stablecoins can interoperate through a 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 conversions between stablecoins.

) 3. Layer Three: Asset Issuers

Asset issuers are responsible for creating, maintaining, and redeeming stablecoins. Their business model typically centers around a balance sheet, similar to bank operations - accepting customer deposits and investing the funds in certain high-yield assets to earn a spread. At the asset issuer level, stablecoin innovation can be divided into three tiers: fiat-backed stablecoins, yield-bearing stablecoins, and profit-sharing stablecoins.

1. Static reserve-backed stablecoin

The first generation of stablecoins introduced the basic model of digital dollars: based on traditional finance